


Show Tunes

by FatalCookies



Category: Doctor Who: Scream of the Shalka
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Enjoy my friends I had a VERY good time writing this., Gen, M/M, Mismatched Love Languages and Discussions thereof, Song fic, The TARDIS team shares a braincell and Alison usually has it, There is also a mismatch of communication styles, also this is a, and a whole lot of two doofuses trying to make their marriage work, and as such there is a tracklist (and playlist by extention)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-19
Updated: 2021-01-23
Packaged: 2021-03-17 13:48:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 23,194
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28850091
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FatalCookies/pseuds/FatalCookies
Summary: In which the Master endeavors to sculpt his communication style to the Doctor's needs, and inadvertently makes a playlist.
Relationships: Ninth Doctor/The Master (Doctor Who: Scream of the Shalka)
Comments: 8
Kudos: 11
Collections: Fiftieth Masterversary Big Bang





	1. TRACK 01: You're So Vain, by Carly Simon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Alison makes a comment, and the Master gets an idea.

It’s the fourth fight of the week. Fourth fight of the week, and even though the Master took initiative in stalking away, the answering sound of the Doctor’s fleeing footsteps still echo in his ears, each one punctuated with pointed frustration. It’s a wretched thing to be stuck on while the tea brews, but stuck he is, and stuck they’ve been.

 _Assam_ , he decides, plucking the canister from the shelf around the same time he catches himself wondering if this is simply the new status quo. 

( _The current state of existence already leaves something to be desired_ , he thinks, _without adding insult to injury, and hateful antagonism into the conversation—_ )

He measures out the tea for the pot, letting the spoon touch the edge of the strainer. It rings with the fine chime of good silver.

(The Master knows fully well that he resides within a metal-and-synthetic frame—he knows that the Doctor went to great and inconvenient lengths to ensure he have what few lifelike liberties he currently possesses—and he is poignantly aware of the fact that his being here at all was very much predicated upon the Doctor’s whim. Which is to say: the Doctor’s mention of _why did I even bother?_ had been neither a necessary nor a welcome remark.)

He might not need to breathe, but the Master lets out a slow, measured breath. 

The kitchen, as ever, remains blessedly free of the Doctor’s meddling presence. Blasted fool has too much of a wandering mind and too impatient of a touch for setting appropriate temperatures. The Doctor’s kitchen ventures had resulted in enough burnt concoctions that, with the Master’s own aptitude for relative patience, he had gently persuaded the Doctor to let him take over kitchen affairs. 

A good thing, too: it is as fine a place as any to let one find some composure again, and let one’s gears (literal and metaphorical) turn away.

He sets the kettle to boil—it is horrendously old-fashioned, but he enjoys the rhythm of it, in point of fact—and considers what the Doctor had said to him.

 _You’re not bloody_ hearing _me is what—_

The Master replaces the lid upon the tea canister with a sharp ring of metal clasping into place.

_You don’t listen! You never listen!_

“Patently untrue, in point of fact,” the Master mutters as he fetches the requisite saucers, cups, spoons, sugar and cream.

Besides, it is hardly as though the damnable fool can call himself an attentive listener, either. The Doctor spouts a lot of nonsense, rarely reacts with thought for the consequence, and worst of all, blunders over each and every one of the rather unsubtle hints the Master leaves him. The Doctor may for some unfathomable reason claim to feel unheard, but the Master himself is feeling far less than _seen_ at present.

(Stars around, they might as well have been raised on different planets entirely. They stand before one another, speaking in the same language, and still somehow in tongues. No amount of translation circuitry can help divided contexts.

Perhaps it isn’t a wonder that the damned fool would come to such a tragically over-simplistic conclusion.)

His attention piques as he hears the door cracks open behind him with the subtle but audible whisper of air and breath. The Master pauses, steeling his spine in case a certain _someone_ has decided to continue with the argument.

“Hey, um,” says a voice that is, instead, patently _not_ the Doctor’s.

“Ah,” he drawls, “Miss Cheney.”

“Oh, thank goodness,” she says, stepping properly into the kitchen while the Master tries to decide whether or not he should take _just you_ as a slight to the otherwise quite intimidating disposition he has endeavored to cultivate. “Sorry,” she presses on, “had to get away a minute. Doctor’s out there already, won’t stop pacing. Have you seen him today? Blimey, he’s in a snit.”

“Is he,” the Master says mildly. “How vexing for him.”

Alison slips in beside him, where he can observe her from the corner of his eye. It seems she, too, is studying _him_ in her own little way, lips pursed in thought as she feigns a casual lean against the counter. The Master, in amiable return, feigns attention to the task of placing each cup upon a corresponding saucer, and each of those in turn onto a tray.

“Yeah,” Alison decides, “should’ve realized you’d know already.”

The Master pauses to regard her. “I should hope that I am aware of the Doctor’s state at any given point while on this ship. I should detest letting the details slip by without notice.”

“Course, sorry I implied.” She shrugs in a way that he takes to mean she’s not terrifically sorry at all. “So—what d’you think? Is it going to take some wild adventure to get him back on track or something? Some big hullabaloo to get his mind off?”

Ah, yes—now that he thinks of it, the Master had some select things to say about hullabaloos and wild adventures, during that argument. _The least you might do is use the damned telephone_ , as he recalls, was among the mildest of his accusations.

“Possibly,” the Master says, swallowing the sourness in his tone, “but such a thing might not come soon to alleviate him. The TARDIS needs to recharge, and there is little better place to do it than in the vortex, where the occasional flare of temporal energy might be collected.”

Alison’s nose crinkles up. “Well, all right. If that’s out—I suppose, you know him. When’s he going to be cheer-up-able, d’you think?”

“It seems to _me_ that such things are entirely up to the Doctor, himself, Miss Cheney.”

“Some help you are,” she quips back. She tilts her head way of the door, and says, “What about opera or something?”

The Master, despite himself, blinks. “Opera?”

“I mean,” she adds, “he was all about that, when he was dealing with the Shalka. Still breaks into song now and again, when we’re out. Some—upbeat show tune, maybe? Can you think of any he likes? Something that’d set him to rights?”

The Master fixes her with a stare. He can only hope it is a withering one; whether or not she’s just realized it, Miss Cheney has in fact said something that borders upon being _useful_ , and the gears (metaphorical, not literal) in his head have begun to turn.

“Fine,” she says, giving up with a shrug. “Was just an idea. I’ll go back to the drawing board then. Don’t let me keep you from your—details, or whatever.”

She gives a mighty shrug and makes her exit. 

For a long moment, the Master wonders. He circles around the concept with some cautious, skeptical trepidation. Loath as he is to confess it, he’s not likely to get through to the Doctor at any point in the near future if he should continue to use whatever methods of speaking he’s employed to date. Subtlety has always been a chip in his favor, a ball in his court, so to speak—and it seems to take a relative hammer to the head, to get anything through to the Doctor.

Still, the idea of _making a scene_ is almost enough to put him off the concept… 

The kettle whistles.

(For the barest moment the Master glances at the cups, and wonders if some good, old-fashioned poison would get through to the blasted fool. It wouldn’t be out of character to try, and not at all unlike them to manage a little pax-de-deux with danger and intrigue. Really, a friendly bout of attempted murder between dearest enemies was par for the course, even if it was a bit passé these days.

Then the Master contemplates the horrible weight of potential success, given everything else that’s happened in the interim. He contemplates, too, the tenuous thread of trust they’ve begun to weave, and considers what it would mean to be the one to break it.)

After a long moment, the Master lifts the kettle.

(He mentally files the possibility away for a different occasion, a distinct set of lives, an unnamed universe unlike the one they currently inhabit.)

With the water ready, it is only a matter of following the method: flip the spout, fill the empty pot to begin. Let it warm while the remaining water cools to an appropriate temperature. Empty the pot, place the strainer with tea, add water until just full. Place the kettle aside, replace the lid, and proceed to wait the required two to three minutes of time for proper steeping. It is a pointed act, focusing on the moment and the movement. There are few better ways, these days, to achieve a brief reprieve from his thoughts. 

One can get so terribly bogged down in one’s own head. 

“Listening, indeed,” he mutters while counting down the seconds to steep. 

It would figure that, after all these years, _this_ would be the place where the cracks form. But the Doctor is too changeable, the Master, too proud. The Doctor hates to commit to a decisive statement; the Master finds the blunt truth to be indelicate and crass. The Doctor really only speaks his mind when he’s safe and comfortable, or showing off—and the Master truly believes that his actions will reveal the better parts of his opinion.

Gracious, what a mess they’ve found themselves in.

The Master turns the pot gently one way, then another, so as to agitate the leaves.

“...show tunes,” he murmurs.

It would, he must admit, at least be novel to _try_.

* * *

Tea time is not usually met with musical accompaniment, but the Master takes exception on this particular occasion. His link with the TARDIS is such that he can make recommendations—even explicit commands, now and again—and have them met with some general reciprocity. He and the old machine have a few more things in common these days than they have in times past; and for all the prior animosities, they’ve recently found a certain accord.

He sets some piano music to play in the minutes prior to his exit from the kitchen. The piece is well into its crescendo by the time he arrives in the parlour. Miss Cheney is already there, and beside her, the Doctor. From the look on his face, he’s still in— _what had Miss Cheney called it?—_ quite a snit. 

From the look Miss Cheney passes him (a slight frown, a subtle downward-slanted thumb), he takes it that his choice has had the proper intended effect. Cheerful piano piece against a grating mood. Yes: this should set the experiment up _quite_ well, indeed.

The Master takes a long, deep breath. 

(The motion itself is calming. A great deal of the mastery one might garner over their own mind comes from nothing more or less than finding the physical ticks, the paths of thought, and the moments of pause necessary to trick oneself into calm. Such was the case long before he ever found himself in such a predicament as he currently does: same with the flesh, it seems, as it is in metal.)

“Tea,” he announces, placing down the tray. “Decent of you all to have made the time, in amongst your busy schedule of cosmic gallivanting.”

“Decent-er if we could partake in peace,” the Doctor snaps.

Snit indeed.

The Master hums with mild, put-on concern.

“Not to your taste, my dear? Goodness me—I had hoped the music might allow for some conversation over the score. But if you’d rather I keep everyone occupied over tea…”

The Doctor, for all he has caught the Master in a great many schemes, still fails to see the simplest traps set for him. With not a small bit of satisfaction, the Master closes his eye around a nod, and the piano fades out.

A new song begins with a piano score, and a moodier backdrop. The Master falls into amicable silence and pours for the cups, passing them out with easy, formal disinterest. He occupies himself with stirring (perfectly, soundlessly) a spot of cream into a cup that he will, at best, be able to sip, but not drink—and feigns, quite elegantly, _not_ looking at the Doctor.

Somewhere along the line _You’re so vain, you probably think this song is about you_ , the Doctor’s frown… changes. His brows knit up together and his eyes dart over to the Master, right on cue.

At least, the Master presumes so. He times himself well enough to avert his gaze fully to the mundane task of stirring his cup.

“Excuse me,” the Doctor says, sounding almost indignant, “is this—?”

“Is this, Doctor?” the Master presses, with an innocent blink. 

They share a look. The metaphorical gears turn, too, in the Doctor’s head. Something not unlike interest sparks behind the Master’s metal ribs. _Communication_ , the Master thinks.

“...nothing,” the Doctor says slowly, unconvinced, and raises his cup to his lips

The Master obliges him with a nod, a “Well,” and a return of his own gaze to the cup. He cannot claim his attention returns there. _Yes_ , he thinks instead, in an almost fanatical haze of euphoric relief, _I spoke, and you heard._

Peculiar, as far as contexts go; but worth it, he thinks, for a shared tongue.


	2. TRACK 02: Build Me Up Buttercup, by The Foundations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the Master repeats the experiment to confirm the results.

He does not, it should be pointed out, push the subject over tea.

That would be  _ far  _ too overt, and the Master has no intentions of being crass, vulgar, or unseemingly blunt in his execution. There is style, and form, and gentility to consider. He’ll not be a boor about this whole thing, he will simply… begin to inject show tunes into his personal vocabulary. Shared context, building the groundwork for understanding in the language. 

Given the Doctor’s propensity for song this time around—Miss Cheney had  not  been mistaken on that note at all—he trusts that the man will not only listen, but might even feel heard for the inclusion of such an interest.

It is all, of course, a little too good to be true. So the Master decides to take his time with the whole process. Prod the pieces a bit. Ascertain whether or not the single instance of connection might bloom out into further understanding. These things do not happen overnight, and rarely are great things built upon on the sudden, blunt edge of a club.

Subtlety will show softness and the best of himself; time to transition will allow for the moods to cool; careful thought will create a foundation for the best outcome.

After tea, the Master clears the table, and promptly sets upon finding a collection of potentially-useful tunes to have in his repertoire.

* * *

All of this is to say, the Master gives it a full Gallifreyan day before he contrives an occasion to share space amicably again with the Doctor. It turns out that the occasion will be little more than a mutual arrival at the time rotor, while the Doctor is making adjustments beneath the console and the Master enters to check their coordinates.

“Meddling again, I see,” the Master announces. “That would explain why the lights had begun to flicker. And here I thought we might be passing some anomaly within the vortex.”

“Lever’s jamming again,” the Doctor says. 

Short, both in phrase and tone, but speaking again. That, the Master decides, bodes favorably. He gives an amicable hum, making a demonstration of his obliging mood, before he says, “Well, if that’s not going to be a problem, and neither of us shall have to oblige  _ so  _ much time or attention to it… then might I suggest we occupy ourselves with something outside the usual purview?”

The Master doesn’t observe the Doctor pausing his work, and shooting a suspicious glare over the console. He only hears the rustling of wires go quiet, and makes out the Doctor’s unmuffled as he demands, “Come again?”

He glances up, feigning nonchalance. 

“Dancing,” he says a bit more plainly. “I thought you might care to indulge me with some dancing this evening, Doctor.”

The Doctor narrows his eyes. It emphasizes the bags beneath them, the Master thinks, in ways that wouldn’t be so attractive if it weren’t for the keen intelligence he was employing in the skepticism. “Dancing,” the Doctor ventures at length.

“That is what I suggested, yes.”

“You and I,  _ dancing ?” _

“I should hope so,” the Master says dryly. “I shouldn’t care to make a fool of myself alone, and I have no intentions of extending the invitation to Miss Cheney. Which, yes, leaves you and I. Doctor.”

For a long moment, they simply watch each other. It is not a usual thing; the Doctor, this time like many other times, errs on obnoxiously talkative. But every now and again, they come to a point like this, silent, and thoughtful. When they reach the same conclusions, the feeling is… singular, putting it mildly. 

Lately, the pondering silences have been downright agonizing.

The Master endeavors, as the Doctor studies him, to not let himself get carried away with worst-case scenarios quite so soon. Instead, he lifts a subtle brow. 

“Unless, of course,” he drawls, desperate, “in amongst all the other daring tasks and riveting adventures you encounter beyond that door, you find a dance lesson in your own TARDIS to be a spot  too  challenging to manage.”

“—oh don’t you start. Not like you know how to dance, either—”

“I do.”

“You don’t.”

“I  _ do _ ,” the Master snaps. “ _ I  _ actually attended important social functions during our time at the Academy—besides which, I seem to recall a time when you were  _ stuck  _ on that favored planet of yours, and  _ I _ had cause to learn a frankly humiliating number of human cultural customs, some dances among them. And I’ll thank you not to doubt my own estimation of my knowledge and abilities, again.”

The silence that goes between them, this time, is even more taut then before.

“Fine,” the Doctor says. The Master should, he thinks, feel relieved, but the irritation still lingers like a hum in his mind. Besides, the Doctor ducks back beneath the console before he can even think about gloating. “Tonight?” the Doctor asks, voice muffled by panels.

The Master considers that. He did tell himself it wouldn’t do to rush. There are times, however, when one must simply take the moment for what it is, embrace what fate has handed to them, and damn well start the proverbial rolling of the ball.

“If you’re not already desperately tangled up,” he says, “I might be persuaded to begin sooner rather than later.”

“What—you mean,  now ?”

“Whyever not? It might even prevent you making a mess of the wires. I hope you realize that, some day, one of your alterations will render this poor, derelict ship of yours totally inoperable. I certainly don’t mind putting off  _that_ particular incident with a more pleasurable one.”

(The Master cannot claim to be ready for such a contingency, but he is halfway expecting. It will occur only at the moment the Doctor is most desperately in need of saving, of course. The universe knows no other way to be.)

“So?” the Master asks.

He does not feel the best balanced, for all of this. Neither of them have sought apologies nor reconciliations since their last spat. The Doctor is a smidge too skeptical and surprised and the Master, skirting too close to a boorishly-spoken truth for his own taste. 

_ At least _ , he reflects,  _ it puts us both out of our depth _ .

“Can’t imagine what you’re getting up to,” the Doctor grumbles. He does, however, begin to properly extricate himself from beneath the console.

The first spark of attention was promising. The Master simply has to settle himself in the knowledge that, if this  _ works _ _ , _ it will be worth the effort and any mortification suffered along the way.

“ I can’t imagine what you mean by that.”

The Doctor places his tools down with a slight clatter and shoots a look the Master’s way. “You’re scheming,” he accuses as he approaches, stopping short before the Master, and awkwardly opens his hands.

After a moment to organize their respective hands—placing one of the Doctor’s hands upon his waist, posing his elbow appropriately, taking hands on the other side while his last finally settles upon the Doctor’s shoulder—after that, the Master meets the Doctor’s gaze and quirks a brow. “I? Scheme?” He tsks softly. “The very  thought , my dear. Come—step out to the side now, won’t you? No, with the  _ right _ , if you please. Right, left, rock-step, repeat. Simple as you like.”

“This is ridiculous,” the Doctor says, but the tone is not grumbling any longer, just pointed and matter-of-fact. The Master decides to take that as a good sign.

“Very good,” is what he says instead. “You’re already getting the hang of it. D o  remember to keep your arms steady, if you please. Frame hold, I believe it’s called.”

“Blast it all, you really meant it when you said you picked up the human dances—”

“I am very aware of what I said, thank you. Focus, Doctor. I suspect the introduction of music will improve the activity, and I should like to have some faith that you will  not  step upon my toes with the addition of the slightest distraction.”

The Doctor chuckles. He actually  _ chuckles _ , thank the stars around and the void in-between.

After a peculiarly silent microspan, the Doctor finally says, “All right—okay. Think I’ve got the hang of it.”

“Music, then?”

“By all means. Master.”

He pretends to muse on the matter, never mind he has already picked what he suspects to be the best and least-accusatory option. After an appropriate few breaths, the Master  _ ah _ ’s softly, nods, and whispers the command to the TARDIS. 

She chooses to be helpful, for a change, and play the music precisely on cue.

They have a false start in dancing, but the Master is quite all right with that. It draws attention away from the lyrics to start, which allows a soft (subtle) entrance into this whole thing. The moment of truth is upon him, he realizes: it’s time to see if this will actually be an effective way of getting through to the man.

They find their rhythm again right around the second ask of  _ why do you build me up _ . The Master, to be safe, fixes his eyes on the Doctor’s well before the line  _ and then worst of all _ … 

But it’s for that particular lyric that the Doctor seems to notice the intensity. 

He turns his head, and really  meets the Master’s fixed gaze, his concentrating expression twisting, his subtly-raised brow lifting higher. The Master’s metaphorical hearts lift precariously close to his throat, all in time for the Foundations to helpfully explain,  _ you never call, baby, when you say you will _ —

The Doctor, to the Master’s abject horror,  _ snorts _ .

This was a foolish idea, he decides. Foolish, hubris at its finest, far too revealing and just as potently humiliating as any insipid, weak-boned, heartfelt confession into thin air and good gods,  _ whatever was he thinking _ ?

A frame hold must be rigid in order to reinforce the postures. His hands are already rigid inside of it. With a twisting grimace he pushes, his shoulders hard as the steel which reinforces his spine—

—and the Doctor pulls after him. He’s chasing him, the Master realizes, half an instant before he hears the man murmur, still laughing, “Wait, wait—”

Then the Doctor ducks his head, kisses the Master’s cheek in time for the words,  _ more than anyone, darling _ …

_ You know that I have from the start _ .

The Doctor is, somehow miraculously, still keeping time with the steps. In the void that disbelief leaves in its wake, the Master finds himself matching the rhythm. Then, after a few moments to get his senses back about him, he starts to push again, this time endeavoring to mold the damnable fool back into the frame hold. One of them, he reasons, ought to keep a strong hand.

(Stars around know there might not be a firm heart between the two of them, just now.)

“Master,” the Doctor scolds. The Master hesitates. Without his ministrations, it’s a matter of moments before the Doctor’s posture softens up, effectively breaking the shape for good. The Master decides not to complain. It took stumbling, awkward steps to come to this fragile moment anyway, and it seems to him that the Doctor’s palm, now pressing into the small of his back, so that his own nose sits an intoxicating centimeter from the Doctor’s chin… all together, comprise a fair enough exchange for suffering the stubborn disobedience of the fool.

It feels, he muses, surprisingly like hearing, and being heard.

( _ Awkward _ , he concludes. But, perhaps, worth trying again.)

The Doctor, he notices, is still smiling by the time the next chorus croons out,  _ don’t break my heart _ .

* * *

In the end, it is the Doctor who decides to tweak the dials and adjust their coordinates, and it is the Master who takes the peaceful, happy duty of putting the panels back onto the underside of the TARDIS, where they will stay until the next time the Doctor decides to meddle.

“You know,” the Doctor says into the quiet, “we should do that again sometime.”

“Should we?”

“Sure.” The Master watches the Doctor glance over the console. He lets out a soft breath that’s just reminiscent of a chuckle, and curls his lips in a way that’s vaguely alike a smile. “Can’t get better if we don’t practice, and I can’t have you boasting about all the human things you’re better at than me.”

“Certainly not,” the Master agrees, feeling giddy.

The Doctor, this time, undeniably smiles. The aforementioned giddy feeling is, he discovers, not at all helped by the Doctor’s expression.

“Reading room, next time,” the Doctor announces. “Less chance of Alison catching you being obliging, I’m certain you’d hate that.”

“Same as you’d detest her catching  you , exercising a very limited sense of rhythm, I trust,” the Master amicably retorts.

The Doctor chuckles again, turning back to his work—and for a brief moment, everything in the Master’s world seems in its place. 


	3. TRACK 03: It's Not Unusual, by Tom Jones

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the Master must press the Doctor to schedule a dancing date.

The dizzying, heady feeling of contentment lasts for the span of a single afternoon.

The Doctor, it should be mentioned, is and always has been  _ terrible _ about setting a firm time and day for any occasion. The Master, hopeful and practically intoxicated by the Doctor’s turnaround in mood, had somehow neglected the common sense conclusion that, when the Doctor said  _ next time, reading room _ , the Master’s immediate response should have been  _ when, both date and time, if you please _ .

Unfortunately, it seems they both have their own respective propensities for absolute idiocy.

The Master makes five separate attempts in the next ten days to secure a date and time for their next time, dancing, playing a show tune, hearing, and being heard. He is once interrupted, once delayed, and twice put on hold for the occasion, as the Doctor has apparently decided that the inclusion of his latest human companion in their evening affairs must take precedence.

* * *

(He’s not against the whole thing, in principle. As far as the Doctor's companions go, Miss Cheney is by far one of the most tolerable he’s ever had the misfortune of meeting.

It’s only that, the second time around, the Master begins to stew a bit.)

* * *

The  _ third  _ time that the Doctor invites Miss Cheney into their reading room to sit and discuss, the Master is… off-put.

In fact, being frank about the matter, he’s downright  _ cross _ .

It isn’t that there is anything pressing, is the thing. There are no repairs that need to be made (though he did briefly consider letting one of the systems run too long and overheat, or let his hand come into an unfortunate tangle with some TARDIS wiring, before ultimately coming to the conclusion that such an endeavor on behalf of the Doctor’s attention would be a certain degree more pathetic than he’s willing to entertain). There is no particular, pointed conversation that must be had (though he does suppose he could turn this dry stint between them  _ into  _ a conversation, but pity’s sake, shouldn’t this be obvious, and really,  _ must  _ he divulge so very much of his grievances? That, too, comes off as a little more pathetic and pining than his pride allows him). It is not as though there is any argument that needs deescalation, no discussion that must happen in a timely matter—no, no,  _ no  _ cushion by which to facilitate this rather delicate matter.

Namely, he hasn’t gotten a moment alone with the man, outside of sleeping hours, for the better part a fortnight, and he cannot quite dismiss the idea that the blasted fool is brushing him off.

(A treacherous part of him whispers about  _ running _ , but really—the Doctor only ever runs with the TARDIS, and the Master is most irreparably tied to it, these days. The Doctor won’t be going anywhere without him.

But then, that particular train of thought leads to others—about how manacles and handcuffs are, in some cultures, equated with romantic entanglement and the entrapment thereof—and then he thinks about aerodynamics, and drag, and the idea of what is usually done with things that disrupt the momentum of an object prized for its trajectory.

The Doctor is not that cruel, but the Doctor  _ can  _ be that miserable, and the idea of being a subject of misery is not the appealing prospect it once was.)

“We still haven’t managed that dance lesson, Doctor,” the Master says. It’s almost abrupt, the way he brings it up—Miss Cheney has only just excused herself to retrieve cream to refill the unusually empty pot, over breakfast.

(Sometimes, one must make their own luck, and contrive their own convenient moments.)

The Doctor blinks up at him. “No?” he asks. And as the Master stays silent ( _ isn’t it obvious? _ ) the Doctor blinks again, then straightens slightly in his seat. “No,” he says, like a revelation, “I suppose we haven’t, have we?”

Whatever he feels, it isn’t frustration—it burns the same at the back of his tongue. The Master hums, as much soothing the aftertaste as he is agreeing. “We ought, my dear,” he says, peppering in the endearment. Honey catches more flies than vinegar, and all that.

“We should,” the Doctor says, then encouragingly adds, “Tonight? Oh,” he brightens, and promptly ruins it by starting, “we could ask Alison—”

“After all your adventures, of late?” the Master interrupts. He keeps his tone haughty while his hearts panic. “Doctor, really. You speak so often about how delicate the poor creatures are. Do allow her a bit of reprieve. We’ll manage on our own, I trust.”

The Master rearranges a spoon upon the tray, and pointedly ignores the way the Doctor’s eyes suddenly narrow.

“Not like you to have a human’s best interest in mind, Master,” the Doctor observes at last.

The Master hums again, taking his time. He is not one to shrug, and never has been, but the casual dismissiveness will, he hopes, come off to similar effect. “You’ll be insufferable,” he says once the silver is arranged to his taste, “if anything should happen to that  _ human _ . I like to think of it as looking after  _ my  _ best interests, Doctor—which, I trust you will agree, is  _ very  _ like me.”

“Quite,” the Doctor says. Quick reply—it’s a repartee, verbal spar of a sort. The Master lifts a brow and watches the Doctor consider him another moment longer.

The Doctor, this regeneration,  _ is  _ one for the occasional shrug.

“Very well,” he says, “tonight, you and I, while Alison gets some rest.”

“Perfect,” the Master says.

“—and,” the Doctor adds, “I suppose you’ll not want me to mention it to her, either—that I’m shooing her off to bed because I’ve a lesson in footwork I must attend?”

The Master glances at the Doctor and gives him a slow, pointed blink. “The way you say it makes it sound so… paternalistic,” the Master drawls. “I see no reason to go to all that effort. I’ll simply see to it that her sheets are quite clean tonight, so that whatever dastardly things you all get up to during your excursions, she’ll have her abode quite ready for her purposes. I suppose you’ll not want  _ me  _ to be any more overbearing than that? Doctor?”

A long pause goes between the two of them. Repartee, indeed. Parry, parry, thrust. Pax-de-deux at its finest. The Doctor’s lip twitches and the Master lets his brow lift by the most subtle possible millimeter.

“I’ll let her know I’ve got matters to attend,” the Doctor says at last, with a delicious little quirk of his lips that leaves the Master rather suddenly inclined towards some immediate possibilities—like proximity, and further witticisms, and the kinds of tensions that when drawn taut will close the metaphorical loop, and bring the participants into each other’s circles.

“Let me know what?” says Alison, in a stunning example of just why “meddlesome” is the word the Master always defaults to, when having to describe the Doctor’s chosen companions.

“Got something I’ve got to do tonight,” the Doctor quips, easy as you please, as the Master sets his posture back to rights, “that I apparently can’t miss, so I’m going to be off and about, won’t have you wait up for me or anything like that. All after we get back from whatever planet the TARDIS drops us on, of course.”

“Oh, you two having a date night?” Alison says.

Self-control is a marvelous thing. That is to say, the Master  _ does not  _ spit out his drink.

“Beg your pardon?” the Doctor keens.

“No, that’s lovely,” Alison presses on. “Good for you two. I was sort of wondering when you two were sneaking it in, what with all the running about you and I have been getting up to, Doctor. All good. I’ll make sure to put in my headphones, shall I? Just in case.”

The Doctor continues to sputter. The Master, for his part, takes half a moment to decide whether Miss Cheney’s current ease of expression is one of earnest nonchalance, or one of a rather surreptitious tease. Careful shape of her lips, the ease with which she resumes pouring cream, stirring her cup, lifting it to sip, while the Doctor too-loudly disavows the notion… it all leads him to suspect it is the latter option.

He… takes the second half of that moment, to begrudgingly admire the fact.

“We appreciate the gesture,” he says, through the Doctor’s halting excuses, “Miss Cheney.”

“Do you? That’s a bit of a change. You going soft?”

“Funnily enough, the Doctor was just asking questions of a similar persuasion, while you were out. I assure you, Miss Cheney, my motivations are incredibly self-interested—and being that they are, I won’t bore you by divulging them.”

“Aw, thoughtful. Thanks, mate,” Alison says, and takes a deep and unseemly swig of her own cup. “Right, no time to waste, then. Be off in a bit, Doctor? Get my good trainers on, meet you in the console room?”

She makes it quite clear, actually, that it’s not  _ actually _ a question, given she leaves no time for the Doctor to catch up with the change of tone, much less formulate a less-than-stilted reply. She rises to standing once more, collects her saucer and cup, and another biscuit besides— _ carryout,  _ the Master thinks, is a very apt turn of phrase—and strides right off.

She leaves behind her a brief silence.

“This one is very tolerable, actually,” the Master lilts. He’s not actually sure if he means it more as a compliment for the Doctor, or if he means it as one for Miss Cheney, herself.

“Good luck, me, keeping up with you lot,” the Doctor grumbles. He downs the rest of his cup like some men do shots—and the promise of tonight, safely squared away, makes that comparison seem less distasteful, and more… piquing. “When we get back, then?”

The Master dips his head in acquiescence. “I do trust you won’t do grievous harm to yourself? I’d hate to reschedule, given your exceedingly booked agenda.”

“Like I said,  _ good luck, me, _ ” the Doctor repeats, shaking his head. He does, however, gather up his cup and saucer into a hand—picking up good habits, too, from Miss Cheney, and whatever compliment will he owe her, next?—and reaches out. The Master turns over his hand. Their palms touch, and the Doctor’s fingers curl. He squeezes.

“Tonight,” the Master affirms.

“Dancing. Let’s keep it upbeat, shall we? I liked the last stint, lot of fun.”

Privacy permits what follows. The Doctor, with greater allowance than usual, leans over and kisses the Master’s cheek. The Master, unprepared for the sentiment, takes an entire, counted second to get a hold of himself. 

“I’ll see,” the Master drawls at last, “what I can’t do.”

“Good, good—mind if I, ah—”

“Pop out? Not in the least. Do go on, Doctor, whilst I resume my duties as  _ domestic servant.  _ No, no—I know. Allow me the self-deprecation, won’t you. It’s been an exceedingly gentle morning, and I’d rather not push my luck. Much more and I might have to poison something to get back to my senses. We wouldn’t want that, now, would we?”

Tease between them looks funny, these days. But the nice thing about rapport, of course, is that they both, at least, understand it for what it is. The Doctor rolls his eyes, and the Master shoos him off to the next thing.

The Doctor and Miss Cheney depart within the hour, and the Master goes to the console room to keep watch, and as well, to begin to explore some of the options. 

* * *

After much deliberation, he selects to the Doctor’s request. An upbeat piece, hadn’t he said? So the Master, more obliging than he actually thought he could be while feeling so cross, acquiesces. Besides, he suspects the Doctor might appreciate the general sound of the piece, along with the tempo. He does have a bit of a penchant for those Earth-bound songs of an early-to-mid 20th persuasion.

Once he selects the piece, then, it’s off to the usual humdrum. Dusting, it turns out, is not actually a sufficient means of tempering one’s mood—and for all the satisfaction gained from a hint dropped, and a single battle won, he is very well aware that undue confidence quickly loses one all they’ve put into a war. The satisfaction, then, tempers, and leaves him with the same squirming restlessness— _ annoyance _ , truth helpfully supplies—that he was so afflicted with these last several days.

A fortnight— _ really _ . A fortnight, nearly! Surely one ought to catch more than glimpses of another select person, in all that time. 

The Master… he can pride himself many things, but  _ selfish  _ and  _ greedy  _ are certainly among his greatest flaws. He’s come to accept this fact with the subtle dignity it deserves. Unfortunately, between those two more dignified flaws,  _ jealous _ —a much uglier blemish to wear—does tend to crop up now and again.

(Not that there’s any help for it. Outside of the TARDIS lies the severance of his mind with the Eye of Harmony. Between his rigid spine and the deathly grip of an event horizon, there really is no question over who will triumph in that tug-of-war. He’s bound here, and it’s as simple as that. But his mouth does go something like dry, even now, thinking of all the other people the Doctor will meet out there, the many new enemies he will make, the many grabbing hands anxious to take him, pull him down, and under—pull him toward—

And when his reach is so  awfully  limited… 

Even Miss Cheney can step in and out of a door that he, himself, must necessarily refrain from stepping through. It is one point she has above him, in the Doctor’s life. For all  _ her  _ many virtues—and privately, he grants her a great many—that sole fact alone would once have been enough to condemn her, in his mind. 

The fact that he does not act on the occasional homicidal urge towards this young woman is a point of consideration that he does not think the Doctor admires enough, frankly.)

Needless to say, the dusting does little for his mood, and the TARDIS conciliatory hum is more a grating scratch than a soothing balm.

And gracious, he does forget, at times, how long the day seems when he has it all—and only—to himself.

He has washed all the recently-used sheets, re-dressed the beds, dusted, prepared a simple supper for Miss Cheney and set it into her chambers, done a spot of maintenance on the TARDIS’ wiring (overdue, but then, it usually is when the Doctor says he will get to it, and chases the Master off the task), gone and dusted again—when the Doctor and Miss Cheney finally arrive back.

The Doctor expounds on the delights of the world visited, and the exhilaration of an adventure gone right, for a change. Alison has some things to say about that—apparently, she doesn’t think the number of fires they left in their wake indicates as much of a success as the Doctor, himself, estimates—and the Master, terribly enough, feels every word twist up. He does try to listen: it’s only a challenge when he pointedly has nothing of substance to add to the conversation, having missed the context; and again, a challenge because they did  _ just  _ discuss, this morning, what the evening should look like. The words each snap a tripping delay before his waiting feet, and like the minute cuts of grass (another thing he hasn’t felt in a good,  _ long  _ time) sting as they go along.

Jealousy is well at the risk of turning into snappish pettiness. Then, Alison catches his eye, blinks once, and interrupts the Doctor with a, “Well—bully for you, Doctor, but it was a little much for  me . I’m heading off. You two have fun without me—and that’s not a suggestion, you hear?”

For half a moment, the Master wonders if he had begun to look quite stern, that Miss Cheney was able to pick up on the cue.

He decides a single instant later that he doesn’t care.

“Miss Cheney,” he purrs, dipping his head, not bothering with the usual well-wishes for fine sleep. They’ve wasted enough time as it is. He doesn’t even wait until Alison has completely turned her back, nor waited for the Doctor to get out his own farewell before he grabs the damned idiot’s wrist.

“Oh, go on then, if you don’t want to discuss the finer points of combustion and its many uses—yes I— _ stop that _ —good night, Alison!” he shouts after her, before tugging in the Master’s grip. The Master, pointedly doesn’t let go. “Get off, then, what are you doing, Master—?”

“Dancing,” the Master snaps, shortly. “We agreed.”

“Damned sort of rush you’re in,” the Doctor scoffs. “Can’t wait until after I get out a good night, at the very least—?”

“No, it can’t,” the Master replies. He pulls. The Doctor, haughty and still riveted from his adventure, has not yet found a steady center, and so is easily taken off-balance. He catches himself out of the resulting tilt, dodging a step closer to the Master. The Master does not break eye contact. “You’d dally all night if I let you.”

“Oh—come  off  it, I agreed, didn’t I? We’d get around to it.”

“Quite. Like it’s taken us two weeks to get around to  this  moment—which you, I notice, continue to delay at your own whim.” The Master slides in a step closer, slides past the open folds of the Doctor’s coat, places his hand squarely (softly) on the Doctor’s waist, above the hip. He tries very, very hard to glare. “You haven’t exactly instilled the greatest trust in me, with regards to your timing, Doctor.”

The Doctor harrumphs quite impressively, but the Master is not one to be so easily intimidated, and if the man is trying to put him off, well—he’s several days late to that particular appointment. The Master presses his palm in and finds he can feel the slight rise of the Doctor’s hip bone through his outfit, and the Master’s own glove.

“I was thinking I ought to prepare a little something special,” the Master says, settling in, “in the next day or so, to potentially… soothe things over, with Miss Cheney. Seeing as she isn’t included in this evening’s festivities, and all. I trust you’d be amenable?”

“You’re being very obliging about Alison,” the Doctor says. Suspicious. 

The Master will confess it was a flimsy excuse to start, but still. He lifts a brow to the Doctor’s skepticism. “It would,” he says, more frankly, “get you back in the habit of eating, at the least. I  _ thought  _ you had gotten a bit finicky, as of late.”

“How do you mean,  _ finicky _ ?”

“Picking about your plate. I’d take it as an offence to my preparations, but then, Miss Cheney doesn’t seem half so tentative in her appetite. I know,” the Master soothes, “it is very good for you to be out and about, Doctor. But there are still things you must attend to.”

Eating. Rest.  _ Me, _ he doesn’t say. Too up-front. The Doctor never listens half so closely as when there’s some intriguing mystery before him, some vagueness that leads to his sharpened attention and closer scrutiny. 

It is… not an  invigorating  game, per se; but it is theirs, and the Master wouldn’t change it for this universe and the next one along with it.

“Like,” the Doctor deadpans.

The Master fights down a smirk, and nods once. A synapse fires; electrons rush from one spot to the next. The TARDIS hears him, the mechanics whir as they will.

The music starts. 

Old-fashioned, indeed. The Master hardly minds: this sort of sound is quite to his tastes, even with his general distaste for that backwater planet the Doctor holds oh, so very dear. It is, perhaps, a little more upbeat than his usual proclivities would incline him, but, then, it isn’t all about himself, now, is it?

There is a point to be made.

The Doctor’s brow rides up, and the Master paradoxically lowers his chin. They regard each other. The Master gives the gentlest little push with his hand—and the Doctor sways back in a simple rock-step, letting go of the frame hold they began with. It is a simple thing, the back and forth sway, hands pressed together to press apart afterwards. Most of it, at this point, is footwork, held together only by the push-and-pull of two dancers together, and steadied by the residual shape of a framing hold. Two counts of eight, and then the Doctor swings smoothly back in with a side-to-side sway that makes much better use of this frame. 

(It is a bit more formal than a swing would usually encourage—but the balance is worthwhile. The Master, for his part, prefers to keep to form for a time before breaking it, never mind if the style is rather dependent upon the moments of freestyle, and understanding between partners. This change of affairs is far more to the Doctor’s taste than his. He reminds himself: this is not only for the Doctor’s benefit, more than his own. He is only making a point. All of these things, together… build, as it were.)

They’ve no sooner started in this more formal sway than the voice—rather famous one, as far as the Master can make out—begins to croon out his verses. The Doctor’s lips do something funny, that’s neither a wriggle nor a grimace, and he gives a soft snort.

The Master, this time, lets himself smirk.

Amusement, for now. Perhaps an improved mood shall help the point to land. 

_ It’s not unusual to have fun with anyone, _

_ But when I see you hanging about with anyone…  _

The Doctor blinks at the Master. The Master lifts a brow, and without needing to, takes in a little breath that puffs his chest out oh, so very slightly.

Good, then. Point, perhaps, is landing.

_ It’s not unusual to see me cry…  _

“Master,” the Doctor starts.

“Turn,” the Master reminds him mildly, and nudges his hand within the Doctor’s to prompt him. The Doctor, in turn, lifts his elbow and palm high, and the Master manages the turn without actually falling behind-tempo. He snaps his head around, and finds, to his satisfaction, the Doctor is poised and ready, that his grip is still firmly present. The Master cannot be accused of swaying, but his footwork is reminiscent as he steps back to frame.

_ It’s not unusual to go out at anytime…  _

“I don’t suppose this is a way to try and distract me from the moves,” the Doctor ventures.

_ But when I see you out and about, it’s such a crime…  _

“Perish the thought,” the Master says, quite seriously for a change. He curls his fingers a bit pointedly on the Doctor’s shoulder. The Doctor—quick learner, thank stars for that much at least, once again lifts his arm in time, and the Master turns beneath it.

When they’re face-to-face again, the Doctor adds, “Because it’s either that, or your choice of songs are incredibly pointed.”

Funny, the Master thinks, for the Doctor to be playing coy. He blinks mildly as the Doctor’s hand once again settles on his waist. “You know fully well I do not tend to act upon whim, Doctor.”

“You’re not usually going about playing music and badgering me for stints of dancing, either.”

“Perhaps not. But it seems to me that  _ you _ appreciate the occasional change of pace, my dear,” the Master points out.

After a pause, the Doctor tilts his head in begrudging acquiescence. “Funny,” he says. This time he doesn’t need the Master’s prompting to lift his arm; the Master loses sight of the Doctor’s face just as the blasted man adds, “It’s just that I can’t remember having asked for that. Change of pace, I mean.”

The Master arrives back in their (loose, improper) frame hold and blinks.

“I should like to think I would not be so boorish as to wait until you are forced to ask for it.”

The Doctor hums, and the Master is met with the peculiar sensation that they are each only hearing, at present, half the conversation. He thinks briefly about Alison, able to read the room, and feels for a moment the hottest flash of envy.

_ It’s not unusual to be mad with anyone. _

“Try something new again, then,” the Doctor casually offers, “next time we do this?”

_ It’s not unusual to be sad with anyone _ .

“Five days,” the Master says, firmly. “Barring any emergencies, and I do mean  _ emergencies _ , Doctor. In the reading room, proper, this time. And I should mention, I plan to be quite cross, again, if you are to break our appointment.”

_ But if I ever find that you’ve changed at any time… _

“Wouldn’t much be you, if you weren’t,” the Doctor says. The words come neither with a grimace nor a chuckle. 

The song ends with the same fading sensation that the Master is currently experiencing regarding his confidence in this plan. The Doctor slips out of his embrace, makes a grab for his hands, and gives them a squeeze. “See you in bed, shall I,” he says, casual as you please, “don’t take too long.”

He gives the Master a kiss on the cheek, as though all is balanced in the world. When he departs just a moment later, he leaves a chasm behind him, filled to the brim with silence and the Master’s own spiraling thoughts.


	4. TRACK 04: Alone, by Heart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the Doctor makes some clarifications with regards to genre.

The problem, of course, with having a certain, solid day and time confirmed between them, is that the Master now knows exactly how long he has to consider, reconsider, set down, pick up, take a new perspective, pondering again—and generally think the matter to death. 

The affliction is made all the more intolerably by the knowledge that the Doctor is not suffering the same fate in any way, shape, or form. The morning comes; he galivants off, Alison in tow; he stays out long past the expected time of return, as per usual, and still does not have the good courtesy to ring. As such, dinner is cold when the Doctor returns, and the Master has turned on the same anxious thoughts for hours—and it is still only a day since they last danced.

Needless to say, the next three days following fare no better.

(It occurs to him that he might have to further compromise his subtlety. It’s not a pleasant thought, but the fact of the matter is this: he has endeavored to ask the man to call him more often, to keep him in the know, to gift him with a modicum of additional, personalized focus—and even expressed in it all how wretched it feels to be left outside of the metaphorical loop—and somehow, still, the blasted idiot has  _ not  _ phoned,  _ not  _ given the Master the faintest idea of what is going on the instant they leave the TARDIS, has  _ not  _ endeavored—beyond the Master’s outright insistence—to make time for these occasions… 

He seems to hear the suggestions as they are put down in the tunes, and manages still to neglect them.

The Master knows full well how cruel the Doctor can be, and this iteration is nothing if not cold and cutting when he wants to be. Even so, the thought that the Doctor would hear, and neglect, does something to the Master’s would-be hearts that scarcely bears thinking about.)

* * *

Unfortunately, the Master begrudgingly reflects, he’s very in love with the fool.

That is what it all boils down to, in the end: idiotic, hopeless, unending  _ love  _ of the man has seen him burn through lives, and chase across the universe; has seen him clawing his way back to life when death was all that laid before him; has seen him decay, and possess, and humble himself, and pride himself. He will do just about anything for the Doctor. If the past is any indication, he already  _ has done  _ just about everything for him that he can stand to concede.

So, yes. He will need to further compromise on his subtlety.

The ends, he assures himself,  _ will  _ justify the means.

He selects a song that is soft, and wishful, and tragic, knowing full well there will be no pleasantries to hide behind. He prepares himself, as well, for the eventuality that he might have to say something, or ask something, so as to get through to the man.

Right on schedule, too: he makes his choice of tune the very morning of their planned engagement.

* * *

Alison, for once, is in no need of excusing. The Master is already situated in the reading room, having read the exact same page for the last half an hour, when the Doctor comes toppling in.

“Late!” he announces, as though the Master did not know that already. “Funny you weren’t at the console, though. Trust you had a good eye on us, that being the case.”

“Scanners,” the Master says dryly, “indicated that the planet did not have much to offer, by way of danger and intrigue. I did set the TARDIS to notify me, should anything crop up that might look less than totally innocuous.”

“Innocuous is  right . Bloody dull planet, if you ask me. Beautiful wildlife, flora beyond reckoning, but  _ dull _ .”

“How terrible for you.”

That seems to give the Doctor a pause. He blinks at the Master, sniffs the air, squints. The Master can see the proverbial gears turning. “...late,” the Doctor says at last, “for arrival, and dinner. Alison found the leftovers already, good on her. Said I’d come after you—glad I did. Late for dinner, early for our rendezvous.”

“Quite,” the Master agrees, though he lets his book slip at least partway closed. 

The Doctor notices. That is something of a new development, the attention. The Master hones his own in as the Doctor nods, humming, watching the Master’s hands, muttering something under his breath about the time.

Then, finally, he announces, “Well! Both here now, aren’t we? Come on, stand up—let’s get started. Things to learn, points to be made, I suspect—”

“Doctor—”

“—or don’t you?”

The Master realizes, quite suddenly, that he is not the only one who has likely been stewing these last five days. Of course, of  _ course _ —the last interaction was strange, and fraught. The Doctor, fool though he is, has never been daft enough to fall for every intricate turn of the Master’s cunning. This is why he is so enamored: the Doctor can keep up.

He realizes quite abruptly that they’ve pushed this to the point of making or breaking. 

With a snap, he closes his book. He stands, placing it down; the Doctor responds in turn by reaching out a hand, taking the Master’s with easy practice when the Master himself responds with an extended palm. The Doctor tugs; the Master steps into place with his hand upon the Doctor’s shoulder, their chests held in proud parallel, his chin set at a slight up-tilt.

The Doctor stares at him with pale blue eyes, and the Master feels his shoulders go taut.

“Fox trot,” he manages, stiffly. “Step forward left, right, then two quick steps—to the side, then together. Slow, slow, quick-quick. As—so.”

He steps back with his right, a reflection of the Doctor’s steps, as he dictated. They give it a few practice steps in an almost suffocating silence.

“Got it,” the Doctor says.

“You’re quite sure, my dear—?”

“— _ Quite _ sure. Let’s get on with it, shall we?”

The Master reels for a moment, taking in how off-puttingly combative that phrase manages to sound.

In response, the Doctor lifts a brow. “Music,” he drawls, “Master.”

Yes, he realizes. Combative is precisely the word he was after. He does nothing so unseemly as clench his jaw, but he does let his lips tighten, significantly. He gives a curt nod, and the TARDIS hesitates a moment before she lets the tune begin to play.

The sadness of the melody seems, suddenly, like such a cheap and paltry veneer for what this actually is. The Master meets the Doctor’s eyes, because he is not a coward, but every thought about tipping his hand falls away like sand from a shaken rockface. All his pondering upon dropped pretense and compromised subtlety flees him, and he is left with the unshakeable urge to  show nothing .

_ I wonder where you are tonight, no answer on the telephone _ …

The Doctor leans forward, hissing into the Master’s ear, “Point to be made, I trust?”

“I cannot fathom what you mean,” the Master murmurs.

The Doctor’s hand tightens on the Master’s waist. It is  _ not  _ an exciting gesture. “You’re losing your touch.”

“I beg your—”

“You pride yourself such an excellent liar,” the Doctor clarifies, “but that? That’s—oh, my—you’re hardly even trying, Master. Go on, do go again. I’ll even pretend I didn’t hear the first, give you an honest chance to convince me.”

_ I never really cared until I met you _ ...

The Master genuinely thinks of stepping out of the dance. Instead, he squeezes the Doctor’s hand—too tightly—and considers his options. “I did think,” he says at last, tone sharp and punctuated, “that I was being rather kind, actually.”

_ And now it chills me to the bone— _

“Did you.”

_ How do I get you alone? _

“I did, in point of fact.”

_ How do I get you alone? _

“I don’t suppose you’d care to elaborate.”

The Master tests the Doctor’s grip with a slightly longer step backward. The Doctor, keeping frame, follows right after, catching up with the next step. A frown actually begins to take the Master’s lips.

_ You don’t know how long I have wanted— _

“You yourself accused me of not having listened close enough, Doctor—and given we found ourselves at such cross-purposes—”

“—what,  _ that  _ old tiff—?”

_ —you don’t know how long I have waited _ —

“—it seemed to  _ me _ ,” the Master says through half-gritted teeth, “that a change of pace might aid our efforts to speak to one another.”

“What,” the Doctor deadpans, “with  _ dancing ?” _

_ And I was gonna tell you tonight _ …

The Master actually pries himself out of the Doctor’s grasp, with a firm twisting of his hand and a push against the Doctor’s shoulder. He manages his escape, though the gestures altogether pull a soft, indignant protestation from the Doctor.

“I hear you quite well, in fact,” the Master snaps. “But given that you are under the impression that I never  _ listen,  _ it seems quite clear that something of my attention is lost upon you. I had  _ thought  _ I might make myself a bit clearer—”

“—by dropping hints to air your grievances?”

“—by speaking to you,” the Master hisses, “in a way that you might actually be inclined to listen, yourself, and hear me respond.”

“Oh—that’s—that’s priceless. Do you hear yourself? ‘Yes, all right, I’ll go ahead and make myself heard, by way of dropping  _ convoluted hints via song lyrics _ , sure, yes,  _ that’ll  _ show him I’m listening’—in what  world ? You sound ridiculous!”

“Ah,  _ quite _ _,”_ the Master says, the acid in his tone fighting back the sudden, suffocating panic, “because nothing says ‘ridiculous’ like acknowledging the interests of one’s living partner, whilst endeavoring to ascertain his continued partnership—”

_ ‘Til now... _

“ _My_ interests —?”

_ I always got by on my own— _

“—for the love of all that is good in the universe,” the Master says, surprised to hear his voice raised, “Doctor, do you really think I’d sift through—through— _ Earth-originating show tunes—” _

“—are you—”

“—for the sake of my own pleasure?”

_ “ They’re not even show tunes _ _!”_ the Doctor shouts.

Every fibre of the Master’s being tightens into something much harder than the metal frame that holds him, and colder than the void that threatens them outside this ship. He presses his tongue—synthetic—against the roof of his mouth—fabricated—and watches the Doctor with the unblinking intensity of time’s own relentless turning.

To his side, he hears a soft, “Oh, blimey, um—”

He snaps his head aside and sees Alison, hissing softly between her teeth, as she stands awkwardly in the doorway.

“Sorry,” she says, “um. Am I—?”

“Busy,” the Doctor says, “right now, Alison.  _ Master _ —”

The Master does not stop. The spectacle has already been made, the damage done. He need not try to smooth it over, nor to commit himself to further humiliation by remaining where he stands a moment longer.

“Do pardon,” he murmurs, “Miss Cheney.”

Smart girl, she steps aside long before he gets to the doorway. The Doctor calls after him one more time, tone impatient, but the Master pays it no heed. With a slice of his hand through the air, the music cuts out.

In its place is left a ringing silence, punctuated only by the sound of his own fleeing footsteps.


	5. TRACK 05: You're No Good, by Linda Ronstadt

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Alison engages the Master in a discussion on love languages.

Seeing as the damned fool has lost all interest in improving connection between them, the Master decides the best thing he can do is meet the gesture, measure-for-measure.

He continues his tasks around the TARDIS for the sake of occupation, and because he’s not about to leave the poor human in their charge to rot. But he endeavors to speak to the Doctor as little as possible, and keep his answers clipped and brief when he must respond.

Exactly once, the Doctor caught him alone in a space.

With a nod of his head, the TARDIS had begun to play a song where both the title and the repeated refrain amount to no more or less than  _ you’re no good _ . From there, he made his exit.

_ That _ particular incident occurred three days after that gods-forsaken argument.

It has been four additional days since.

* * *

The Master is, for lack of a better phrase, still fuming when Alison Cheney knocks on the frame of the library door, pokes her head inside, and says a gentle, “Um. ‘Lo.”

“Good even, Miss Cheney,” the Master drawls, and pointedly does  _ not  _ close his book. He may have been stuck on the same page for the past twenty or so minutes, but he sees no reason why he ought to give up the effort. He might trusts he will receive better returns from this utterly inanimate stack of paper and ink than he will from a certain conglomeration of flesh, blood, and hearts currently poddering about this very TARDIS. “Is there something,” the Master presses on, trying to keep the frown from his voice, “that I can help you with?”

“Oh—no, no.” She shakes her head, all put-on casual airs. She steps into full sight and crosses her arms, leaning on the doorframe. The Master does glance up over the pages, to regard the posture fully. He likes this about Miss Cheney, though he’d be loath to confess it aloud.  _ Casual  _ is the air she decides to wear when things are askew around her. It’s such a lovely distinction from the tip-toeing or overly-meddling cohorts the Doctor has selected in the past.

“Then?” he asks.

“Actually, I was sort of thinking maybe there was something  _ I  _ could help  _ you _ with.”

The Master lifts a brow. “Do tell?”

“Well, that little tiff between you and the Doctor—”

The Master makes a mental note to revise his estimation of Miss Cheney, with regards to  _ not  _ being overly-meddling, even by comparison.

“—it was sort of rubbish of him, I thought, so seems to me… maybe you could use someone checking in. You get me?”

The Master lowers his book into his lap, and blinks. It hadn’t occurred to him that meddling could possibly tip in his favor. He regards her, and considers the possibility that the Doctor sent her to perform this kind of meddling on his behalf. He considers the fact that the Doctor does pick relatively intelligent, outspoken companions—and that this might lead to them having enough good sense to be critical, now and again. He considers the idea that Miss Cheney might even mean it, when she calls the man’s recent actions  _ rubbish _ .

The Master finally, graciously nods, and gestures to the seat beside him. “I’d offer tea,” he explains, “but the mood, I think, might sour the cup.”

“You’re telling me,” she says, and crosses the room to sit. Neither care nor carelessness mark the gesture, but the Master  _ does  _ notice how she leans, perching her elbows forward onto her knees once she’s settled. “So… checking in. You all right?”

“Perfectly, Miss Cheney.”

“Right, okay,” she says slowly, tongue lingering on the r, “‘cause you didn’t look it.”

“Looks  can  be quite deceiving, Miss Cheney.”

“Can. But—and I may have mentioned this—he was acting  _ real  _ rubbish, and you’re not usually short for a smart reply, Master.”

He lifts a single, amused brow. “My dear Miss Cheney,” he murmurs, “what in all the world leads you to think I was  _ short  _ a smart reply?”

“Well, you didn’t tear him to pieces then and there, which I suspect you could have.”

He hums. “Tear is so vulgar a term,” he muses. “I’d quite prefer—”

“Eviscerate?”

“Miss Cheney,” he says. It’s not an exclamation—he sees to that—but the pleasant surprise, he notes, does lift his tone into quite a piqued lilt. “How you  _ do _ like to flatter me. Eviscerate, yes, do let us go with that. I think it will go quite nicely for what I might have done to the man.” He pauses. “Verbally,” he adds, “of course.”

“Not so sure about just that, actually,” Alison murmurs. Before the Master can return the quip, she shakes her head. “S’not the point, though. You walked away, instead.”

“Hardly good form to argue in front of company, wouldn’t you say?”

She shrugs. “That might put you off it a little. But it didn’t… look like that, either. You just—got all hard-looking, and walked off.” She pauses. “So, I think I’d like to ask it again, actually, and I’d quite like it if you were a bit frank with me, Mr. Master.”

He blinks again, seeing if she’ll waver with a moment or two longer to let the implications linger. She doesn’t, and for some peculiar reason he cannot quite discern, he decides to be indulgent. He nods. “I will… make an effort, Miss Cheney.”

“Good. You okay?”

An effort, he said. And for whatever reason, he  _ is  _ feeling indulgent. He gives a long sigh. “Miss Cheney,” he murmurs, “I am at the damnable fool’s beck and call, I see to the workings of this ship, its functionality and safety, which extends to  _ his  _ continued safety, and ability. I see to it he cares for himself, and that all things are in their place. And on top of all that, I endeavor to time my steps with his, and accommodate for his whims and methods. I do my best, in fact, to make sure that he is… heard, and that when I speak, I do not provide him any obstacles that might  inconvenience  his ability to hear  _ me _ .”

The Master pauses, and blinks. He takes a moment to return the book in his hand to the small shelf that sits between the chairs. Composure has the most infuriating habit of slipping when one gets too honest, and he finds himself toeing rather dangerously close to that line. Every instant of reprieve will be of benefit. There’s no need to show  _ so  _ much.

“As such,” he finishes, as he nudges the spine into line with the rest, and straightens his back, “while I find no reason to temper my vexation, the best practice I might engage in is… well, simply, disengagement. I have tried my best to make myself heard, and to speak my piece in such a way that it might be easily attended. Given, however, that my efforts have been for not, and I am, it seems, quite unintelligible to the man—whyever should I divulge even  _ greater  _ energy into an outburst which would most likely result in precisely the same inattention?”

For a moment, he and Alison simply watch each other.

“Bloody hell,” she murmurs at last, “you two have got baggage enough to fill up this ship for a year of holiday, don’t you?”

“And then some,” the Master allows.

“Well—like I said, it was—”

“Rubbish,” the Master interrupts, lifting a hand, “yes, you did say, and I did hear you. There’s no need to beat the point to a pulp, Miss Cheney.”

"Terrifying,” she said plainly, pointing at him. “That metaphor, coming from you.”

“I feel I ought to be flattered.”

“Floats your boat, mate, go for it. Look—all I’m saying is, I’m real sorry to see things being so rough with you both. It wasn’t exactly the best of times with me and Joe, either, when I left with the Doctor, so… I get it, I get snits, and tizzies, and all that.” She pauses. “It’s just.. you know. What’s the plan, then?”

“The  plan , Miss Cheney?”

“Next steps and all. You’re not… what, just—going give him the silent treatment, until he gets his act together?”

“In fact,” he drawls, “it’s  _ very  _ possible.”

“You realize that could go all kinds of wrong.”

“Things often do, between us,” the Master says—and blinks upon realizing just how  heavy  the words sound on his tongue. _You’d think,_ he muses, _the Doctor had used lead to construct it._

But if Alison hears it, she doesn’t give any outward indication of the fact. The frown seems a different, thoughtful variety, the sort that pressed her lips into a small shape at the center of her face, and pushed a peculiar divot between her brows. The Master waits a moment, and her contemplation finally breaks with a subtle sucking of teeth that has the Master tilting his head with interest.

“You’ve got really incompatible love languages, you know.”

A beat goes by as the Master considers that. Or, well, tries to. 

“I beg your pardon?” he says at last.

Alison leans back at last, rolling her shoulders. “Love languages? Been reading about them—they’re  _ your  _ books, yours and the Doctor’s, I mean. You don’t know about them?”

“My dear, the Doctor is an avid learner, a terrible academic, and an irredeemable hoarder. The chance of him having a book is great: the chance of him having read it is much less, and the chance  _ I’ve  _ located it on this labyrinthine old ship, and cracked it open…”

Alison waves a hand impatiently. “Okay, okay—I get it. Look. The thing about love languages is, right, how you show affection. And it’s what makes  _ you  _ feel appreciated. Everything you just described, Master—the accommodations, and the checking-up, and the functions and the ability and—well, all of it, right? It sounds a lot like acts of service. You care, so… you do the things that need doing. You take things off his plate. You make sure he’s taken care of. And—for you—that’s affection. That’s the act that proves it. That’s—you know—you, saying you… care.”

The last word, the Master thinks, sounds quite awkward when she says it. He suspects there was another word vying for its place before she settled on that one. He decides not to interrogate the hesitation, and let ‘care’ suffice for a term.

“But the  _ thing  _ is,” Alison presses on, “what if the Doctor’s got a totally different one?”

“Miss Cheney,” the Master drawls, “I’m very sure I have  _ no  _ idea what you could be talking about.”

“No?” Her shoulders straighten and square, and the Master suddenly catches a glimpse of the no-nonsense, formidable  companion posture shine through. “You doing all that for him, he says one blunt-headed thing—okay,  _ very  _ blunt-headed thing—one daft thing, and it’s… suddenly, Master, it’s all your efforts, all your serving him, all the care you’ve put into that, and he—shrugs it off. Right?”

“Goodness gracious,” he murmurs, “if you’re trying to rub proverbial salt in the wounds, Miss Cheney…”

“What I  mean  is,” she repeats, more softly, “if he’s got a different way to say it, and doesn’t stop to think for a second not  _ what  _ you’re saying, but  _ how  _ you’re trying to say it, and what that means… I’m just saying, Master. That’s not an impossible fix, you know? That’s pretty workable, actually.”

The Master does not break eye contact with Alison, but he does let the thought begin to turn.

“And what,” he says at last, “pray tell, would the Doctor’s be?”

“Easy,” she shrugs. “Time spent, or words of affirmation. Probably both, honestly.”

“Meaning?”

She shrugs. “The time with you’s enough. Time with anyone’s enough. Sure, he makes an occasion of it, but he doesn’t seem to like doing it alone. He wants people around, there, with him. You might've taken on the meal prep, mate, but he's the one insisting we all sit together for breakfast. There's a dozen times we've gone out, he hasn't needed me a speck, but he's taken me along anyway. He wants the people he likes around. And I suspect you did the lot of that, before I ever started traveling with you all.”

For half a moment, the Master is actually lost for words.

“And—” she presses on, giving the Master a look that he can only interpret as  serious , “—words of affirmation, I mentioned, means it’s going to  _ kill  _ him, not hearing from you. Not literally,  god , I wish I didn’t feel like I  need  to say that. My point is… this silent treatment you’ve got going. Sure, you’ll get the message across that something’s wrong—but not much else. Bloody hell, you’ve seen how he clings onto praise. You don’t have to tell him he’s doing right when he’s not, but you’ve got to give him something—”

“—I rather think we are in a position where  _ I  _ am not the obliged giver, Miss Cheney.”

“— _ if you actually want to, you know, make it work _ ,” she emphasizes. “Communication, and all, compromise, give and take. You’re both awful about interrupting people, you know that? I get you’re both stupid clever, but it’s no excuse. It’s rude. Isn’t it rude on whatever planet you’re from, to interrupt people?”

“Highly context dependent, that, I’m afraid,” the Master says. He will admit, the response is mild, and heavily distracted. After a moment, he ventures, “So… your recommendation?”

Alison, in reply, blows a casual sound through her lips. “Figure out what you need, tell each other. Haven’t got anything better than that, mate. Yours isn’t anything new. It’s just relationships. Seems to me, most people’ve got to deal with this sort of thing, eventually.”

The Master… considers that.

“What was it you said,” he drawls at last, “that you had endeavored to do, in initiating this conversation? Miss Cheney?”

She blinks. “Um. See if you’re all right? Guess—see if I could help you with this whole—” she waves a suggestive hand.

Graciously, he nods. “Quite. Well, Miss Cheney, though I am loath to concede much of anything to anyone,  _ especially _ whatever young woman the Doctor happens to drag along to impress—” she sniffs, in response to that, “—I will say, this has been… very enlightening. And helpful.” He pauses a beat, then allows, “Thank you, Miss Cheney. For the insight.”

“...you’re really not so bad, mate,” she says. She tosses him a little smirk, and the Master, obliging, pondering, chuckles along with her.


	6. TRACK 06: Perfect, by Hedley

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the Doctor offers some apologies.

Another few days pass after the Master’s conversation with Alison before the Doctor again endeavors to get the two of them alone.

He’s not left with Alison, this time, which is notable in itself. Alison frets, at first, upon the discovery, but the Master keeps himself stationed at the TARDIS controls, and finds that the atmosphere of this particular world lends itself quite well to thermal scanning and tracking of certain heat signatures thereof. Once they’ve firmly established that they can send Alison out after him at a moment’s notice, she calms, and the Master himself reigns in the habitual concern over the Doctor’s more reckless habits.

Not that he’s trying to make it his concern, but even if he is purely accounting for his own self-interest, it serves him to ensure the Doctor’s continued existence. It’s not, after all, as though he could leave the TARDIS, even if he were to galivant off with it, for reasons related to thievery or… otherwise.

Needless to say, eventually, Alison extracts a promise from the Master to call her should anything go wrong, and finally meanders off to tend to the next things. The Master, in the meanwhile, keeps his post.

Another span or two go by before the Doctor’s heat signature shows up at the door to the TARDIS, and the Master, before the Doctor can reach, cues them to open.

He watches as the Doctor pauses, then steps back into the TARDIS with no grand announcement, no victorious proclamation. The Doctor doesn’t search the room with his gaze, doesn’t look heavily to the floor or frustratedly to the ceiling: he simply looks ahead, and their eyes meet. 

The Master takes his time, ensuring that the Doctor will see him at the console, regarding him with no tension, no narrowing of his eyes, no steeling of his spine. He makes very certain that the Doctor sees him pause, almost nonchalant in his reaction… and then, he makes sure the Doctor watches as he makes a very clear choice (silence, non-reaction) and leaves.

He intends, frankly, to leave it at that. No animosity, just… quiet. He thinks, perhaps, that will make for a good start.

But he is not even ten seconds down the hallway, on his way to neglect the act of heating water for fresh tea, or setting out towels for a shower, when he hears what sounds like… 

Piano.

He pauses. It is a simple enough act, to give a moment, and that he feels is not too much to acquiesce, even in as ugly a stint as they currently are, and even in as furious a mood as he has been.

The music, he realizes, is sad. And, to boot, originating from the very console room he’s just abandoned for the entrance of another.

The Master regards the moment with a great lot of consideration. Oh, it would be a weak and coward’s move, to turn back. It would be weak-willed, reprehensible, and far, far too soft, for him to seek out the Doctor, now. 

Nonetheless, he does consider it. Fair is only fair, after all.

And then he comes to a decision, and keeps on walking.

(He knows fully well what pride has done to him in the past. He knows the cost of holding pride so closely. He holds it, anyway.)

The compromise he reaches is simple: he does not approach the console room again, but nor does he make himself a scarce presence. Recent times have called for it, of course, but now, that too would be a coward’s move, and far more reminiscent of a tantrum than he wishes to convey. He does not want to make a spectacle, per se. He just wants the point to be absolutely transparent—and he will not make the first move.

That must, without question, be the Doctor’s prerogative. 

So he is sitting in the parlour room, a book in his hand and his posture carefully composed into proud relaxation, when he hears the same prelude of piano that he heard earlier.

Again: composure. He does not set aside his book, does not lift his eyes, not at first. He lets the tune play out, and lets things settle in. He lets the Doctor be the one to make a presence of himself, like some penitent in a faith. Like a man who must beg forgiveness. 

His steps are peculiarly quiet on the floor.

_Making every kind of silence takes a lot to realize._

_It’s worse to finish than to start all over and never let it lie._

The Master pauses for a time, considering. The Doctor clears his throat, softly. Like a man making apologies.

_I won’t fall…_

_Even if you said I was wrong_.

The Master glances up.

The Doctor is a miserable sight, circles darker than usual beneath his eyes, his hair mussed at the edges from anxious hands having carded through. The state suggests the instances of fuss outnumber the hours spent apart. His coat—still donned from his latest excursion—seems to hang upon his shoulders, and though the shape of it gives the illusion of width, the perch of it suggests the exhausted, defeated slump underneath. The lips are parted, the Master notes, as if caught on a wishful phrase, or strung between words that all ought to be said at once.

 _I’m not perfect, but I keep trying, because that’s what I said I would do from the start_.

The Master, slowly, with poise, and with hardly a sound to accompany it, closes his book, and sets it aside on the table by his chair. He does not lift a brow, does not stand. He only settles his hands, palms down, into his lap. 

(It must—he thinks distantly—look cruel, this man a wreck before him, looking as much a shadow of himself as the washed-out color of his pale blue eyes. The Doctor has the most incredible way of wearing desperation, and this is no exception—he looks, these days, sometimes infinitely more like a rag doll than a man. The Master notes the jump of a tendon in his neck, the struggle of his subtly-bobbing throat. Emotion fills this man up like drowning waters into gasping lungs. 

Yes—yes, it must look very cruel, indeed, how he sits here watching it all.

How many people—he wonders distantly—would know this for what it really is?)

_Is it something I said,_

_Or just my personality?_

The Master, at long last, blinks. And then he lets his chest rise and fall in some semblance of a sigh, and lets his eyes slip closed for a brief, reprieving moment.

A sound escapes the Doctor. It’s strangled and small, turned around an exhale too short to provide any relief. He dodges forward a step, and hesitates. And the Master—thinking about allowance, and grace, and how rarely he’s granted the acknowledgement of those things when he gives them—turns a hand over in his lap, palm open. He goes so far as to lean forward, slightly, at the waist.

The Doctor carries himself a bit better, after that. Pride, and all. He manages two, three steps. He hesitates again and the Master, more obliging than he imagined he could have been at this instant, extends a hand across the space. The Doctor reaches in turn. They touch; the Master lets the Doctor, anxious and antsy, wrap up his hand in the Master’s, lets their fingers bump and tangle, lets their hands find the respective weave of one another.

“Not a show tune,” the Doctor offers.

“Isn’t it,” the Master mildly asks.

The Doctor shakes his head. His throat, the Master notes, is back to bobbing around a caught attempt to swallow. “It was…”

“...rubbish,” the Master murmurs. “It was _rubbish_ of you.”

“Your words, not mine.”

_“Quite.”_

They pause, and let the instantaneous sharpness of the moment smooth out, like the dull ache after a needle’s pierce. 

“What I mean,” the Doctor says, “is—it was… bad of me. I didn’t think—but I didn’t mean…” He regards the Master a moment, and the Master watches him with a certain impassiveness that, it seems, the Doctor correctly interprets as hard. “Doesn’t much matter what I meant,” the Doctor murmurs. “I see what you’re trying to do.”

This time, the Master lifts a brow. “Do you, really.”

The Doctor clenches his hands. At least, that’s the gesture which the Master credits it being, given how his own fingers are softly squeezed in the ensuing moment. “You’re,” the Doctor says haltingly, “being your usual sort of—tricky self. Putting down clues for me. Some sort of mystery—Machiavellian— _thing_ for me to chase after, little hints for me to—”

The Master stands in that instant, coming for a brief second nearly nose-to-nose with the Doctor. He emphatically disengages his fingers, dislodges his palm from where the Doctor’s had started to wrap around his. He sets his eyes—hard, he is certain—past the Doctor’s shoulder and begins to walk.

“—Master.”

“You’re as daft as ever, my dear,” the Master hisses, “and for the record, _still_ being rubbish.”

“ _Master_.”

It’s pleading, this time, and though the Master’s pride urges him to walk on, with his head held high and his constructed back sterner than the Doctor made it to be, he still finds himself at a pause.

_I’m not perfect, but I keep trying_

_‘cause that’s what I said I would do from the start_

_I’m not alive if I’m lonely_

_So please don’t leave_

_Was it something I said?_

The Master grits his teeth. He thinks of velvet, smooth in one direction, and grating in the other, and molds his voice accordingly: “I do have other things to attend today, Doctor, so if you’d kindly not waste our time…”

“I’m sorry.”

The silence after that lingers for some time. The Master weighs the words said with the actions taken, the pittance offered with the excuses made. He turns his chin alone, cheek parallel to the door, his eyes only just able to glance far enough that they might take note of the Doctor.

He does look truly wretched.

“You’ll have to do better than that,” the Master says, in an instant of terrible plainness.

It is, in fact, terrible. The Doctor squirms under the weight of it. This, the Master thinks—this, among other reasons, is why they can never be up-front, and honest. This is why the effort seemed, for a time, worthwhile. This is _why_ —however can he have missed it? Stars above—he’s resigned himself to an eternity of ever-new challenges to his dignity, and ever-infuriating slights to his pride—he has obligated himself to this awful, tragic mess, and for what? 

What for?

“I talk about Puccini all the time,” the Doctor finally says. When the Master doesn’t reply in the long seconds afterward, he clears his throat, and seemingly decides it is worth it to plow ahead: “And the whole business with the Shalka, made a damned show of it, didn’t I? I hum. I catch myself humming, it’s the strangest thing in all the world, and—and I—I see… why you did it. Why that was the hint you decided to put down for me. And I know it’s not your usual purview, to put on the gramophone for my sake, much less for both of ours.”

Intrigued— _it is far too soon to be hopeful_ , says logic, while his damnable synthetic hearts go on doing as they please—the Master lifts his chin another fraction of an inch.

“I thought it was funny, frankly,” the Doctor pushes on, “the first couple of times. Odd for you, to be certain. I suppose it didn’t actually occur to me until after I’d, you know, said what I said, that… that it _was_ for my sake. Even you, saying, it was for my sake—it didn’t really land. Started to get wind of it, got suspicious, got mad, next thing you know...”

The Master turns his shoulders, this time, so he can regard the Doctor a bit better than he might manage from the mere corner of his eye.

“So I’m sorry,” the Doctor adds, voice soft. “I’m sorry. Trust me, I’d love to come up with a lot of brilliant excuses around now, I’ve got some absolute winners knocking about the old head, but—”

“I do not want them.”

“—no. No. Didn’t actually expect you would.” The accusation would be off-putting if it weren’t so strangely soft, the Master thinks. He blinks, and the Doctor breathes. “So I won’t give them. Not wasting our time, I think you said? Just—I’m sorry. There. _Fourth_ time I’ve gone and said it, well past the point of charm, I do hope that’s quite enough. It was bad of me, I was rubbish, you had noticed something I talked about and stepped up to it, and I—was awful. I’m sorry.”

A beat goes by between them.

“Fifth,” the Doctor mumbles, misery packed into every note. “I’ll leave you to it, Master.”

The Doctor makes to flee with his gaze set towards the door. He doesn’t make it by before the Master grasps his hand, fingers tugging his posture softly out of place when they come to the sudden end of their arm’s length. The Doctor shoots a look over his shoulder, and for all the tension in the corners of his mouth, for all the hard set to his brows, the peculiar tremor to his cheek tells a wholly different story. 

“Go on.”

"Yeah?"

“Go on," the Master soothes, "and play your song again, Doctor. I’m curious to see if I will begin to discern the difference between what is and _isn’t_ a show tune.” A long pause goes between them, and the Master, ever-helpful, ever-thoughtful, tilts his head slightly to emphasize the point. “I cannot hope to learn if I don’t make a habit of listening, now, can I?”

 _One last chance, Doctor_ , he doesn’t say. He squeezes the Doctor’s hand softly, and does not say, _Show me, for pity’s sake, you fool, that you_ mean _it._

The Doctor hesitates. He must be wondering if this is some sort of a trick. Muddled mind—he always gets like this when he hasn’t had enough rest, or when there’s something heavy weighing on his mind. The Master makes a mental note to brew something aromatic and calming, after this whole thing is over. He considers, as well, the possibility of returning to a shared bed—depending, of course, on what happens next.

The Doctor sighs, and shifts his glaring gaze upward. He nods.

The piano starts in again. 

The Master, too, now sighs, and lets his hands slide to where it makes sense for two partners to be: a hand held, one slipping past the waist and to the center of the back. It would be the sort of embrace that two dancers might take in some elegant, ballroom setting, some other planet, some other ambiance coloring the air and spectators to cheer it along. They have no such things out here in the void, and the Master has no one to impress outside of this little circle they make, with their embracing arms.

The Doctor matches the pose, slides in close. The Master notes as some of the tension begins to bleed out of his throat, watches the slope of his coat as the Doctor’s shoulders fall another centimeter, two, then three. They do not step, but they sway, oh so very subtly. It’s like breathing, the Master thinks—the natural movement of two beings, taking life for themselves, pressing through from one moment into the next, gathering the necessary molecules needed for the next tiny combustion, the next agonizing instant.

This time, he listens in whole, and tries to hear what the Doctor has to say to him.

And this time, when the song fades into silence, and the Doctor’s hands are clenched and near to clinging, the Master lets himself feel the apology as it was surely meant to land.

He takes a deep, quiet, and unnecessary breath, and lets the next microscopic combustions fuel the decision forward:

“You look a mess,” he says 

The murmuring tone employed to scold him, he muses, certainly does take away the sting of it: the Doctor neither scowls nor laughs nor flinches. The Master, in increasing softness, spreads his hand wide upon the small of the Doctor’s back, and arches back to look him in the eye. He puts on as no-nonsense an expression as he can manage, under the circumstances. 

“Go to bed, Doctor,” the Master murmurs, “and I’ll be along in—oh, say—twenty microspans. You’ll sip, we’ll read, and you will get the rest you so sorely need. I do suppose you’d be amenable to that?”

“That’s your demand, eh?”

“Precisely.”

The Doctor leans down and presses their foreheads softly together. “No intentions of poisoning the cup?”

“Perish the thought,” he whispers.

The Doctor does not move. The Master, despite knowing it to be the smarter and the kinder thing to do, finds he doesn’t have the hearts to break away.

“What do you want?” the Doctor murmurs. 

A short silence goes between them. For a moment, the Master is not even certain he has heard the man correctly. “What?” he ventures at last.

“What do you want? I mean,” he clarifies into the resulting silence, “obviously, not excuses. You said. But what do you—?”

“Doctor,” the Master murmurs. This man, for better or for worse, has always made a habit of tearing the proverbial rug from beneath him. There is no grounding with the Doctor, no steady feet underneath oneself, no clear direction. The Master takes a slow breath in, and one out, and tries to gently push aside the fact that he has no idea how to begin answering such a query. “Bed,” he reminds the man, instead.

“...right,” the Doctor says, at last. “Bed. Right.”

In the end, it is the Master who finally breaks their hold. Not a firm heart between the two of them, indeed; he certainly doesn’t want to be the one to do it. He thinks, distantly, he ought to be comforted by the fact that the Doctor _isn’t running_ , for a change. Somehow even so, he finds himself feeling exhausted by the effort.

A seed of something akin to resentment plants itself between where his hearts would otherwise be, but the Master choses to gracefully ignore that, for now.

“Twenty microspans,” he whispers instead, “and I’ll be along.”


	7. TRACK 07: So Close, from Enchanted

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the Master speaks his piece.

The Doctor’s waking comes too soon. It is not the sudden, nightmarish waking it sometimes is, only a mild stirring that cues the Master into the moment. He opens his own eyes, and watches the Doctor sigh into his pillow before his own lids flutter open and blink. He watches, too, as the Doctor glances over his face, eyes darting to his lips for the briefest second. He even covers the Doctor’s hand with his own when the damnable man reaches across the sheets with the stilted reluctance of someone unsure.

That is to say: the morning comes, and the Doctor’s words are still echoing in his head.  _ What do you want?  _ The morning comes, and goes, and Master has no idea how to put into words what it is he needs from the man.

What he  _ says _ , as they dress for the day, is, “I do not drop hints idly, my dear. I should like very much to forgive all that has transpired to this point—but I cannot in good conscience do so, if you will not listen to me, either.”

The Doctor goes quiet for a moment. The Master hears him shuffle close, and feels the restless nuzzle at his temple. He closes his eyes, too, and listens when the Doctor says, “Consider my ears open.”

The Master, in reply, turns into the Doctor’s waiting grasp and kisses the fool, as though it will seal the deal and make the suggestion into a promise.

* * *

(They have, in the past, made a great many promises to one another. The tumultuous history leading to now demonstrates precisely what promises have kept, and which ones have ultimately expired.

This knowledge does little to inspire any confidence in him.)

* * *

They pop back to England so that Alison might enjoy a visit with more familiar compatriots. Miraculously, no klaxons blare, no lights flash, no chaos plays out to be read through data and charts. The Master can guess that all is unusually well outside.

The knowledges does no favors for his nerves.

It has taken him days to work up his confidence, again. The Doctor’s words had been quite cutting, and the accusation and the dismissal of his efforts, striking. The very idea of trying again is, frankly, a repugnant and tiresome one. 

But, it is a shared language between them, now, for better or for worse. If he is to try it again, the Doctor will surely accept the cue, and that on its own is enough to try it one, one last time.

So the Master selects the song, uses the activity to fill up the quietude of his solitary presence in the TARDIS. After that, he cues it up. He’s hoping against hope it will—somehow—be a warm and hopeful evening, even though the evidence stacks against. Time dictates, at such a time as this, that they arrive back at square one. For a very long time, the Master has blamed circumstance for their poor luck. He has known, to some extent, the real villain in their ages-long tale has been their own faults and follies. Never has the fact clearer to him than it is now.

(They have everything: time and shared space, compassion and a wish to try. It is unfair—unthinkable—that their efforts should fail them, now, with the stars aligned and all else tipped in their favor.

Unfair, unthinkable—unacceptable.)

He waits at the console, back straight and posture impeccable, held against the wishful thinking and the preemptive disappointment. It’s hard to tell from where he stands now, which one would be more excruciating. He circles the rotor, letting the hum of the TARDIS fill his head, tweaking a dial now and again—until the doors fall open and let the light of the outside in.

“My dear,” the Master greets him, gently.

The Doctor stands in backlit relief, silhouetted, casting shadows with his form. It would be beautiful if it weren’t so absolutely antithetical to what the man wishes he was. He could be an imposing figure, the sort to cast shadows which are impossible to fill—but the Doctor wants, and has always wanted to be, a source of light and hope in the universe. The Master wonders if he knows the tragedy of his circumstance. Of their own shared circumstances.

“‘Lo!” the Doctor calls, waving as he strides inside. “Alison’s going to be a bit, still visiting with the family, as it were. Brilliant weather for it, sunny for a change.”

The Master lifts his chin and swallows uselessly, the synthetics of his throat closing in. The Doctor built this throat, he muses. He could blame him, if he really wanted, for the inconvenience of its current state. 

“All saved, I presume?” the Master drawls. 

“Flatterer,” the Doctor accuses, sing-song and cheerful. Metaphors are quite lost on the fool, even now; instead he circles the relative dim of the TARDIS interior, eyes still adjusting from the outside. “All good, all good—not a single  _ tick  _ of anything unusual on the old screens. You know full well I haven’t saved a blasted soul today.”

Soft times, the Master thinks. Old and tired jealousy tickles at the base of his skull. Soft news and gentle days, from the outside. His mind traitorously wonders when last  _ he  _ was a thing to transform the Doctor’s mood for the better.

He doesn’t have much time to wonder, thankfully; the Doctor slips around the console with a hop in his step, and slides in next to the Master. When he settles, he actually puts his arms on either side of the Master, chest to his back, locking him in. He is still grinning, still half-chuckling, when he turns his head and kisses the Master’s cheek.

The Master hesitates under the possessive sweetness of it all. Distrust is a funny thing: it brews in absence, when one least expects it. The Doctor’s joy belongs to the world out there, not him—and he wonders how the man can possibly presume that, because things are settled outside, all is likewise peaceable between the span of their own respective arms.

The thought occurs, distantly, too softly to be accusatory:  _ How dare you _ .

“And you?” the Doctor murmurs behind his ear. “Got into all sorts of devious mischief while I was gone, am I to take it?”

“None,” the Master says, “though I suspect you knew that already, my dear.”

His tone isn’t flat, but it lands. The Doctor gives a pause and the Master knows that the wheels are set to turning in his head. For a single, treacherous instant, hope alights on the back of his tongue and burns, leaving some acrid and wanting taste behind his teeth.

(He had no words for it, those several mornings ago. The thought of them continuing on as they have been had seemed, at the time, unbearable. They are as complex a machine as any he’s seen before—perhaps the singularly  _ most  _ complex—and watching the machinery shatter, and shatter again, does not necessarily point to what cogs are out of line.)

Then the Doctor takes the Master’s hand. The Master turns a look over his shoulder to regard him.

( _ Do something _ , the Master finds himself thinking.  _ Say something,  _ do  _ something, you old fool _ .)

The Doctor grins, and quips, “Well—get on with it, then.”

The Master pauses. “Get  _ on  _ with it?”

“You’ve got a song on cue, I take it?”

He is left with the taste of ash in his mouth. Whatever sweetness could remain of this moment dries up like water upon hot iron. His mind flickers to recollections of the Doctor, fleeing, standing steady, watching on. He thinks of himself, decaying; himself, offering; himself, burning; possessed; attempting; chasing;  _ selecting music _ all out of hope—

How in all the worlds is it possible, he thinks, that they can stand next to one another this way, himself present by the grace of the Doctor’s interest… and him, still, the one bearing the weight of the fear, the desire, the effort?

The Doctor looks at him with a cheerful, expectant smile set in the corners of his mouth.

Yes, indeed. It always comes back to this. 

The Master closes his eyes and the TARDIS acquiesces. The first notes of the song play.

This is a gentle, soft one. The Master selected it for that express purpose. He realizes quite suddenly he was hoping to not have to play it at all. The softness was less for the Doctor, he realizes, and more for himself. It is, in essence, an expression of apology.

If the Doctor is going to listen to him this way, he might as well be honest.

He shifts back, and the Doctor steps away to echo his movement, but their hands stay entwined. He lets his palm slacken, lets their fingers twist and dance as he turns to face him. For a moment their arms are crossed between them like a defense, like barriers and lies and other things they’ve put up in the past. Then the Master lets those arms fall, and lets the rest of what stands between them take shape.

He steps in a fraction closer, anyway. He lifts one hand to the Doctor’s side, the other to his arm. The Doctor fumbles as he realizes that he is, for once, not the lead in this framing hold. It takes a moment to settle, with the Doctor’s palm on his shoulder, their hands in place. The Master regards him, hoping his expression stays shuttered.

They dance. 

It’s such a soft, subtle thing to start, like the music as it had begun. The Master casts his eyes askance, over the Doctor’s shoulder, so that the damnable man isn’t distracted by his gaze and its skepticism—or terrible lack thereof. His hand presses against the Doctor’s waist; the Doctor, surprisingly enough, follows well. They fall into time together without ever saying a word of instruction, admonition, or apology.

The words  _ so close to feeling alive _ ring out into the air, and the Master hears the Doctor breathe.  It isn’t a gasp.  He wonders if it would make things all right, if it were.

Their steps widen. The sway becomes more pronounced. The Doctor, obliging, spreads his hand on the Master’s shoulder, then nods. “May I?” he murmurs, and the Master, hardly knowing what he’s asking, nods.

The Doctor nods, sliding his hands out of the Master’s hold, and into a more familiar position: the Doctor’s, on his waist, the Master’s, up along his arm. The Doctor uses the dip in the music to shape them both, and take the lead. The Master lets him. 

(He’s trying. Oh, good gracious, is he trying. The knowledge settles into the Master like a pit in the stomach, like the growing ache preceding a hearts-attack.)

The chorus rises in tune. Predictable, measured. The Doctor might not know the song—the Master, in fact, is counting on it—but he knows music. The sway turns into steps. They actually begin to move around the console room, cascading steps. Master inclines closer for the chorus, and contrary to every prideful inclination of his fabricated flesh, he mouths the words:

_ So far, we are so close _ .

The Doctor’s lips quirk. The music picks up and the Doctor lifts his hand. The Master spins. 

(The Doctor has a way of turning the world about him where he goes, and even the Master himself has never been exempt from it. It’s the best and most exhilarating thing in existence.)

As the Master comes back around he sees that the Doctor is  _ smiling _ , mouth parted on the exhale, exhilarated in his own right. He looks breathless and hopeful and happy. He keeps his hand lifted, and the Master spins again under his arm.

(The Doctor has a way of turning the world to his whim and letting the rest tumble out. It’s the worst and most singularly tragic thing in existence.)

A third time suffices, and the Master steps back into the Doctor’s hold. He recalls, distantly, what Alison said about love languages, and the Doctor’s—the time spent, and the words said. He studies, briefly, the smile that’s made its home upon the Doctor’s face.

“I love you,” he says, testing, and meaning it.

The effect is instantaneous. The Doctor’s hand slackens in surprise, then tightens soon after. His chest jumps, as if around a hitching of his breath, and his shoulders sway gently, as though steadying himself from a moment’s dizziness. The smile reaches his eyes. He  _ beams _ .

(The responsibility of the attempts falls upon the Master. When one finds themself aching, prideless, and thus defeated, all the decorum which would demand subtlety—and might prevent honesty—evaporates. What is left is only the truth, however hard and cold it might be.

The Master knows very suddenly what he should have requested that morning.)

“I needed you,” the Master murmurs, “to act.”

“Sorry,” the Doctor asks, still beaming, still floating. 

The Master fights the words past his fast-closing throat: 

“I needed you to  _ do _ , as I have done. You have built this chassis, but I have molded myself to your whim, and pressed myself into the most ill-fitting shapes to be heard by you. I needed you to  _ listen  _ to me—to the actions I took for you—and to respond, for once, with your actions. I needed you to  _ do _ —for once, my dear, before I did.”

“Well, that’s—” the Doctor chuckles, but the sound rings out-of-tune, like the keening hum of an engine failing to keep aloft. “I—that’s doable, of course that’s—what do you mean,  _ needed _ ? What are you even talking about, that’s…”

_ Oh how can I face the faceless days, _

_ if I should lose you now…? _

The Master does not stop looking at the Doctor. That would be unfair, and irresponsible of the weight he now bears. Someone must, must, bear witness to the way the Doctor’s expression begins to fall. Even this daft idiot does not deserve to hold it on his own, sharp, thin shoulders.

The Master slackens his hold. The Doctor shakes his head, but the Master drops his hands, simple as can be. He takes a halting step away.

_ So close, _

"Master," the Doctor says, as if on his last breath. Speaking, still. He’s oh, so very good at talking. If only he were half as good at the rest.

If only the Master still had something more to say.

(The agony is not real. The distress of the hearts mixes the signals, tells one that their chest might break, though no such danger exists. The Master presses his lips together, letting no sadness seep through his expression. He lets the lies of his mind take hold of the synthetic flesh, like drowning.)

_ So close…  _

The Master slips another step backward. The resulting expression upon the Doctor’s face is unbearable. With a sigh, the Master finally closes his eyes. 

" _ Master _ ," the Doctor says again, but the Master shakes his head, his chin heavy, and dipped—tragedies bring even the highest of prideful persons down to solid ground.

_ And still…  _

The Master turns away. It snags at his hearts, leaving runs.

_ … so far. _

The piano accompanies him out. He wonders, for a moment, if the sound of another pair of footsteps will ring behind him, catching up.

He hears no such thing.


	8. TRACK 08: For Good, from Wicked

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the Doctor tries a page from the Master's book.

Aside from the agony he now carries with him for every cognizant microspan of his continued existence—aside of that, the remainder of the evening passes without incident. The Doctor does not try to find him. The Master sets out the evening meal in advance, and afterwards absconds off to some distant corner of the TARDIS, where he can tend to organization, or tidying, or minor repairs…

Indeed, whatever will keep his hands and mind occupied for the next interminable stretch of time between this and the next tragedy will, in his estimation, suffice.

* * *

The sorrow, it must be said, fills far more of him than he expected that it could. It must be going to his gears, come to it, because when the would-be morning arrives, and he returns to the kitchens to organize for breakfast as usual, he finds that the tray has already been set out, cups each in their saucer, the pot ready upon the counter.

Upon that particular discovery, the Master realizes that he is only  _ mostly  _ certain he did not set it out the day before, in preparation for the ensuing morning.

And it is only when he goes to fill the pot that he realizes it has already been warmed.

(At that moment, some strange suspicion begins to tease at the hindmost part of his mind. Either, he speculates, someone has decided to make him obsolete—or someone has decided that the trust placed in him need not continue on further—or…

Or…)

A moment later, the Master realizes he has been standing, stricken and dumb, with pot in hand for well over five seconds. And given that the rest does not bear thinking about, he does the only reasonable thing left to do, and sets the tea to steep, so that all may be set out and ready before anyone else should arrive to meet him.

* * *

Come the afternoon, a peculiar chirp from the TARDIS draws him from the reading room, and presents him with the most peculiar discovery of a note, taped to the door, a single line written in nearly illegible Gallifreyan script:

_ Gone out, back later! _

The Master takes his time, in point of fact, getting to the console room after that. It’s only, if that means something  _ besides  _ what he thinks it might mean, he does not want to rush headlong into yet another (expected, anticipated, terrible) disappointment.

But when he gets there, he finds the scanners are already set to read the planet they have apparently landed upon. Diagnostics, thermal readings, energy signatures with range set to flag abnormalities, the lot.

The Master takes his time walking the console, taking it all in. 

And then he notices the blinking red light upon the telephone.

(Curiosity has most usually been the Doctor’s vice. The Master wonders if it is an invasion of programming, a fault of the build, or simply prolonged exposure that leads him to this point, needlessly breathless, with a finger hovered precariously over the answering machine playback button.)

_ Beep— _

The message, still unchanged, resounds into the relative quiet.

_ —Popped out for a bit, thought I should give a call, _ comes the Doctor’s voice, and the resulting sensation is not unlike the skidding halt of a planet beneath his heels.  _ Shouldn’t be long _ , he continues,  _ TARDIS was pulling us here for the better part of an hour—now that I think of it, suppose that means there could be something afoot, couldn’t there? Scratch that, about not being long. Anyway, brought Alison with, says she’ll keep me from doing anything too daft—sorry, she  _ promised  _ she’ll keep me from doing anything daft, so, ah, try not to fret.  _

A beat passes with the crackling static of connection.

_ Won’t promise I’ll call again, just in case  _ something  _ happens, but let’s talk in the morning, yeah? Got some thoughts vis-à-vis our last conversation, want to get your take. Cheerio! _

The tone cuts in, briefly, followed in turn by a stretch of silence that sees the Master staring down at the device.

He is, he realizes, precariously close to doing something  _ quite  _ foolish, indeed.

So, with a breath to steady himself, he sets his shoulders, and poses at the TARDIS console like some sort of dutiful, automaton sentry. He endeavors, too, to feel as blissfully blank as one of those simple machines might, and finds to his chagrin that the Doctor has done far too good of a job to allow it.

* * *

He makes himself scarce at the first sign of the Doctor and Alison’s arrival back at the TARDIS. Well enough: the Doctor had made a request for the next day, besides, and the Master is under no obligation to decide until that time arrives. 

Instead, he focuses on the mundane tasks of domesticity: changing sheets, setting out first aid supplies, heating water for any passersby through the kitchen to do with as they please. 

It is while he is set on that last task, in particular, that he hears the soft clearing of a throat from the kitchen doorway, and a gentle, murmuring utterance of, “Hey.”

“Miss Cheney,” he ventures.

“You know, you  _ can  _ call me Alison,” she says. “Feel like I’ve said that before, too.”

“You have, indeed. So, Miss Cheney—is there something I might help you with?”

She stretches, subtly. “Might be,” she allows, nodding at the pot. “That hot?”

“And ready for whatever ministrations you might fancy.”

“Bloody hell, mate, you’re a  lifesaver ,” she sighs, promptly going for a mug. “I’m not sore, yet, right? But I can feel it coming, and it’s not gonna be the good kind, like when you go for a run or something.”

The Master hums amicably. The routine of the conversation is, he must admit, comforting in its own way. “Might I suggest,” he ventures, “a hot bath, perhaps?”

Alison whistles as she rips the top from her tea packet, and begins to bob it in the cup. “Suggest away. You know—I was thinking, actually—I still remember meeting you, and talking, and thinking how  weird  you were. Funny bit is, you were right.”

“Was I?”

She shrugs. “Said I’d like you, once I got to know you.”

The Master pauses.

“Miss Cheney,” he says at last, “I would be flattered, if I had the room to be surprised.”

Clever girl: she sees the humor for what it is, and tips her head back on a chuckle. The gesture is soon enough cut off by a grimace, and a drier, half-groaning laugh. 

“Blimey, that smarts,” she says. “Think I’ll head off for that bath thing you mentioned. Oh—damn, before I head off, though—Doctor wanted me to tell you, he’s going to be in the console room.”

Despite everything, the Master stiffens slightly. Still, he has practice: the gesture is easy enough to soften, with a hum and a reaching hand to rearrange the set of the steaming pot. “Ah. Searching out his next grand adventure, is he?”

“After that? That’s a laugh.” Alison sips her tea. “Nah—he mentioned something about work to do, personal project. Wouldn’t say more about it, but—” 

_ Clever woman _ _._ She tilts her head, feigning nonchalance, while her eyes glitter and her gaze lands on the Master with no small amount of significance. 

“—he said it would be nice if I could, you know, keep to myself for a bit, get some rest, sleep in. The sort.”

“Ah,” the Master says slowly. “Flight of fancy, then. He is to be left to himself, and his own devices.”

“Oh, he didn’t say that,” Alison says airily. “Just suggested that  _ I  _ could. But—hey—you’d know, right? He called you. I saw that earlier on, he would’ve said if he wanted to be left to himself, right? So—you know—you’d know.” It is subtle, little more than a brief close of one eye while the other stays firmly locked upon his. No furrow of her brow accompanies it, not even the quirk of a smile. She merely winks. And only  after , does she lift her cup with an amiable grin. “Thanks for the cuppa,” she sing-songs, “and the suggestion and all. I’m gonna have a night in. I’ll see you tomorrow. Late. Obviously.”

She all but sashays out of the kitchen.

* * *

The message had said,  _ talk in the morning _ _._ The Master decides that is reason enough to avoid the Doctor for the ensuing evening. The damnable man has, for better or for worse, put forward something of a timeline into place. Given what Alison had said, and what the answering machine so dictate, he does not for a moment suspect he is keeping the Doctor waiting.

(Even if he were, well—what has he to lose, really?)

In point of fact, he takes the whole of the evening to deliberate upon whether or not he should meet the Doctor at all. To  _ talk _ , no less—as though the efforts on that front had not ended in little short of catastrophe. As though attempts to talk hadn’t brought them to this very point, with the heavy certainty that the universe may never be on their side.

_ Talk in the morning _ _,_ the message had said.

There is no such thing, technically speaking, whilst floating in the vortex. Nonetheless, he is a Time Lord in mind, and he tracks the passage of time in his head with all the natural ease that most species breathe. He knows when the so-called morning comes, like a cusp of dawn that draws the eye. Beating back something treacherous and wishful, the Master decides, at last, to concede.

_ Wanted me to tell you—he’s going to be in the console room . _

The TARDIS is  _ humming  _ today. The old girl practically vibrates along the edges of his framed mind, buzzing with something not entirely unlike anticipation. Whatever project the Doctor’s gotten up to, it’s got her atwitter. It figures: for all his more foolish ministrations, she selected him just as the Master had, all those years ago. She’d prefer even his clumsy, reckless touch to that of any other being in all the universe. She would throw herself into oblivion, for absence of the idiot. 

They aren’t unalike, in that way. 

The Master arrives in the console room with a dignified if impassive stride, prickling nerves soothed by the blunt edge of disappointment. The Doctor, it seems, is  _ not  _ at the console.

“Aha!” the Master hears, “Good! Glad you could make it.”

The Master lifts his eyes. There are two spiral staircases running in parallel along each side of the console room, reaching up along the time rotor for the purposes of maintenance and—he heartily suspects—aesthetics. The Doctor currently stands upon a platform at the topmost part of the spiral, tipped close to falling over as he leans upon the railing and waves. Even from here, the Master can make out his grin. 

“You said you wanted to talk,” the Master says. 

“Yes! Want your take. Been having loads of thoughts, bouncing about the head, you know how it is. See, the thing is—you tipped your hand some time back, Master—”

(He is well aware of the fact already, though for the Doctor to bring it up seems a low blow, even for him.)

“—and I realized, you haven’t the faintest idea what differentiates a show tune from whatever regular, run-of-the-mill music they’ve got on Earth, have you?”

“I—beg your pardon,” the Master deadpans.

“Thought so!” the Doctor chirps.

The Master, almost too exhausted by now to be affronted, much less hurt by the gesture, replies with a world-weary, “Doctor, I truly cannot imagine how this pertains—”

“—right, right, to your take. Getting your take on it. Just hold on a moment, please, I haven’t got quite the close connection you’ve got with the old girl, it’s going to take me an extra moment or two—ah!  _ There _ we go.” The Doctor, having momentarily diverted his attention back to the wall, once again flings himself upon the railing, peering down. “Show tunes. As in, from a  _ show _ _,_ Master. Musical theater! I’ve got quite the example just here, and I’d really be quite pleased if you gave it a listen. Don’t mind me while I just…”

The Doctor lifts up both hands then, pointer fingers raised in orchestration. Then, to the Master’s surprise, he sings, “ _ I’m limited _ …”

The first notes of music ring out beneath his voice. They do not sound like when the Master had played songs through the TARDIS. He realizes quite suddenly that the Doctor has gone and  _ fiddled with the acoustics _ to create the quality of surrounded musicality currently filling the space. 

“The  _ thing _ about show tunes, Master,” the Doctor announces, while some other, softer set of vocals continues to play underneath, “is they’re meant to be  _ performed !” _

“What in all the Seven Systems,” the Master whispers.

He does not manage to finish the sentiment before the Doctor leans precariously forward, to where the time rotor widens out to the towering ceilings into an intricate web of cogs, mechanics, and decorative paneling. The Doctor reaches out with a hand until he comes to the widened glass-and-steel frame around the rotor, curls his fingers, and flicks a nail against the crystal.

Just like that, the soft light of the console room slides from its usual, pale yellow tinge to a gentle, lavender-blue one. 

The Master hears the Doctor murmur something to himself that he cannot quite make out at the distance.

“I’ve heard it said,” the Doctor starts, “that people come into our lives for a reason, bringing something we must learn—and we are led to those who help most to grow—”

The Master realizes, suddenly, that the Doctor isn’t speaking, not really. He might not be carrying operatic tones, it might not be melodic, yet—but these are words, sculpted by another, to be sung. The damned—the blasted fool is really  _ singing _ —

_ “—if  _ we let them…” The Doctor pauses. _“...and we help them in return.”_

(Something traitorous, small, and  _ insistent  _ begins to build behind the Master’s collarbones.)

The Doctor crosses his arms over the railing, leaning over with a sort of put-on drama that’s simultaneously quite unlike him, and still unsurprising to see. He quirks a strange expression of the lips, and shrugs, and slips further into melody to sing,  _ “Well, I don’t know if I believe that’s true. But I know I’m who I am today because I knew you.” _

(Hope is a nasty, insidious thing, the Master thinks. It starts soft, wishful, forgivably meager, and quickly grows into a clamorous thing which refuses to be ignored. It crams into every nook and cranny of one, and leaves them with little room for more reasonable sensations such as  _ doubt  _ and  _ sorrow  _ and...)

“Now this bit,” the Doctor says, infinitely more conversational, as he pushes himself off the railing and starts down the stairs, “is all poetry, you should give it a listen sometime, all about—rivers, diverted courses and the like, but  _ this — ” _

He stops himself mid step to grab the railing again with one hand, spreading the other wide, so that he can properly  _ belt out : _

_ “Who can say if I’ve been changed for the better? _

_ “But because I knew you…” _

The Doctor’s voice softens some, for the last: the Master finds himself waiting as if on a bated breath. Their eyes meet properly, and even at this distance, the significance of the exchange carries weight enough to turn planets.

_ “...I have been changed,” _ the Doctor sings,  _ “for good.” _

(The Master thinks briefly of satellites, stray bodies of rock tossed about by the whim of larger cosmic bodies, until they are drawn at last into the orbit of gravity enough to hold them. He wonders—realizing even as he does how  _ stupid  _ it is—if they might feel a similar joy in such an embrace, and the ensuing order it brings to their revolution.)

“Doctor,” the Master says.

_ “ Now _ _,”_ the Doctor says, hurried, not an interruption but certainly a rush, “this one’s a duet, yes? So this, conceivably, would be  _ your  _ part, if you were going about the singing—which, for the record, absolutely  _ not  _ expecting from you, no offense.”

“None taken.”

“Perfect. Honestly, the lyrics slant a bit more at what  _ I’m  _ trying to get at, anyway—and I am getting at something, promise, hold on if you haven’t got it yet. I’m coming to a point. Just got to be  _ clever  _ first.” 

The Doctor starts down the staircase with almost worrying speed, and in turn, the Master steps in a subtle turn, to adjust his view. His mind flickers back to planets in orbit, and the incredible fact that even their diminutive forms are enough to tug a star back and forth in its mooring. 

That is: the Doctor spirals, and he steps. 

“Sort of,” the Doctor continues, “jumping in and out of the song. For instance—here we go— _ so much of me is made of what I learned from you—you’ll be with me, like a handprint on my heart.  _ But this bit,” the Doctor says, nose wrinkling, “I don’t care for, implies some end to our stories and I’m not ready for that yet. But as for stories _ — _ ” He opens his arms wide, tone tipping once again into melody,  _ “know you have rewritten mine by being my friend.” _

“Doctor,” the Master says again.

“Back to the metaphors,” the Doctor continues. He’s back down the stairs again at the same flying pace as before. “Chorus coming up again—ready to give it a try, yourself, yet? No? I’m willing to embarrass myself alone if I  _ must _ _,_ but it  _ is _ a duet, Master—”

_ “ Doctor ...” _

_ “—who can  _ say  _ if I’ve been changed for the better…” _

His ability to hold the notes, it seems, is rapidly declining as his breath picks up, along the stairs. An almost overwhelming urge to  _ laugh  _ strikes the Master, as instead he shakes his head, and poses himself like a sun-facing flower in turning.

“—can’t do this,” the Doctor mutters, “hold on—already heard the chorus, this is the important—”

He takes a small hop to land upon ground level. There’s only a moment, it seems, to breathe; from there, the Doctor spreads both his hands, tilts his head, brows tipped—

_ “And just to clear the air,” _ he starts off singing, then slips oddly into speaking, to say, “I ask forgiveness,” and he steps closer, and closer again,  _ “for the things I’ve done you blame me for…” _

The pale blue lighting of the room catches softly on the sharp corners of his face, highlighting the almost embarrassed smile he puts on. The track underneath plays the dueted line, the one would-be meant for a dueting partner  _ (but then, I guess, we know there’s blame to share)— _

(Unasked for, but acknowledged, the Master echoes the steps closer, and nearly opens his mouth to reassure him, _it’s true_ —)

_ “—and none of it seems to matter anymore,” _ the Doctor belts. 

The next moments pass by strangely, with almost dreamlike weightlessness. The Doctor seems almost swept away by the music, humming the overlapping parts with half-lidded eyes as he approaches. And it is  _ him _ approaching, as the Master keeps himself still, standing, marveling at the strangeness of this instant.

The Doctor slips one step closer and takes the Master’s hands. The Master lets him.

(He might even, one day, admit to squeezing the Doctor’s hands in reply.)

_ “Who can say,”  _ the Doctor sings, murmuring,  _ “if I’ve been changed for the better…” _

He closes his eyes, dodging forward. Their foreheads touch. The Master manages  _ not  _ to lean back in reply, but trembles slightly to the touch.

“...I do believe,” the Doctor whispers, “I have been changed for the better.”

He’s always talked too much. He must know that, for he falls quiet in the next few, blissful moments. Instead, he opens his mind, laying bare the convoluted concoction of nervousness, awkward attempts, edging exhaustion, and something wide and bright beneath—the natural conclusion of fed and nurtured hope.

Perhaps he sings the last few lines, perhaps not. The meaning comes across, nonetheless, in the mixing of their respective minds, together.

A long silence follows where there stands nothing between them but the mutual observation of one mind to another, and the tentative brushes that come with age-old familiarity, and necessary trust thereof. A shorter but changed silence follows after, as they extricate their respective parts, and come each back into themselves.

“Hey,” the Doctor murmurs into the quiet, “um. Anything you need?”

The Master draws in a breath. Steady, certain, and orbiting, takes the Doctor’s face in his hands and drags him down into a kiss that lasts, and lasts. He feels the hitch in the Doctor’s chest as the respiratory bypass kicks in. He doesn’t stop until he is certain that they will both surface, dizzy, room spinning around them like the universe around celestial bodies.  When they finally gasp, and get their fill of atmosphere again, the Doctor laughs.

“Right,” he murmurs, “yes—all right, think I can manage that. Help set out tea again, shall I?”

“Not on your lives.” The Master squeezes the Doctor’s hands. “I’ll not be made into some obsolete model, kept for your whim and amusement, thank you  _ very  _ much. But,” he adds, fighting a smirk, “I  _ will  _ be expecting calls from here on out, my dear.”

The Doctor, reckless fool, shows no such fight in him; the next small kiss is punctuated by a grin. _“_ _ Definitely _ _,”_ he whispers, “manageable.”


	9. BONUS TRACK: Happy Together, by The Turtles

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the Doctor offers a dance.

It is not, it should be mentioned, as though the occasion repairs everything that has been broken between them. The Master is well aware of how much maintenance complex machinery demands, and there is little of greater intricacy than this delicate thing they’ve made, together.

Thrice in the week following, the Doctor gets snippy, and demands a more transparent answer—and the Master, with tragedy fresh in his mind, begrudgingly concedes. Habit, he suspects, will soften the blow to his pride. After all, the habit of staying in, of limiting his own machinations, of keeping up the metal frame he resides within, of being beholden to someone—indeed, all the trappings of living with the Doctor have all grown easier in time. This, too, shall receive practice and diligence—and the recompense will be comfort, and ease, and a great deal many lovely things that once seemed impossible.

Twice, as well, the Master makes certain suggestions along the lines of _follow through on what you say, you damned fool_ _._ The Doctor takes his dear, sweet time picking up on the first dropped hint, but the second, he seems to hear, and responds to with incredible promptitude.

(They’re going to be all right, the Master decides. A pox the whole great, wide universe, which has never been on their side—they are _going to be all right.)_

* * *

The Master, in point of fact, is not _specifically_ keeping track of the days—and as such, it comes as a slight shock to all parties involved when Alison suddenly looks up from her own journaling, curses softly, and says, “Oh—sorry. Lost track of time, there, see myself out.”

“Prior engagement, Miss Cheney?” the Master asks with a single lifted brow.

She gives him a _very_ funny look then, and says, “No? Um. Don’t really want to intrude on date night for you two, though.”

The Doctor coughs, and the Master lets his other eyebrow lift along with the first.

“Though I appreciate the gesture,” he drawls, before the Doctor can cut in with something inane, “we had nothing planned this evening, Miss Cheney. And given you are an expat of Earth, perhaps you’d even have some recommendations of a song or two, that we might all enjoy together?”

The Master becomes, suddenly, very aware of the Doctor’s gaze, boring into him. He decides better than to glance over at the man with an expression that suggests _yes, I_ am _aware I have just opted to further our time spent with the human woman, your latest chosen companion, and no, dear, nothing nefarious, do soothe out that brow before it sticks._

“What,” Alison hesitates, “you sure?”

“Quite,” the Master allows with a slow, dipping nod. “Go along. The TARDIS has extensive records of these things. Just speak clearly, please.”

“...right,” Alison says at length, “okay.” A smile starts to tug at her mouth before she bites her lip, as she takes a humming moment of consideration. “Cheesy,” she admits, under her breath, “but—um—” her volume pitches up, as does her diction. “Happy Together, by the Turtles?”

“—that’s long before your time, isn’t it?” the Doctor pipes up.

Alison shrugs. “Sure. Fairly new for you, though, best I can make out.”

The Master stifles a chuckle as the music starts to play. 

“To think,” the Doctor grumbles, good-naturedly grumpy, “I wanted you two to get on.”

The Master finally turns his eyes to the Doctor, obliging at last the movement out of the corner of his eye. The Doctor, it seems, has lolled his head back against the seat of his chair, and is now lazily proffering his hand across the arm of the wing chair.

“How about it,” the Doctor goes on, “dance lesson?”

For a moment, the Master mulls that over. He lets the contemplation play on his features, lets the Doctor watch him consider. Then he stands, and with as much decorum as he can muster, he says, “Alas, my dear Doctor, you might just be a helpless case. Two hearts, two left feet—cannot be helped, I fear.”

He takes, instead, three steps to his right, and offers up a hand to Alison.

“Miss Cheney? If you’d care to dance.”

“Oh—ho _ho_ _,_ wow,” she chuckles, lips round, glancing between the two of them with a look of scandalized amusement. The Master chances a glance between the two of them, as well.

(It was a calculated risk, but it seems he has played his cards right. The Doctor has a veneer of equal surprise as Alison, but beneath it is a quirk to his lips that bespeaks of something much softer. Joy, perhaps. He _did_ always want the two of them to get on, after all.)

“You know what,” Alison says, standing as she takes the Master’s hand, “why the hell not.”

“Very good, Miss Cheney,” the Master says, letting an easy smile pass his lips. “Now, it’s quite simple. It will be one step to the left, one to the right, and a simple ball-change, as so. I’ll match you on the other side. One, two, three, four…”

Very clever woman, really. Quick on the uptake. Her carriage is awkward and stiff, prone to fits of giggles and falling out of the (much less intimate) framing pose. But she keeps the steps, and laughs, and even breaks the hold to point between the Doctor and the Master, to say, “This one’s for you blokes, obviously,” right around the time the singers proclaim, _I can’t see me loving nobody but you._

The Master lifts his arm for Alison to turn underneath, and in that split second, catches a glimpse of the grin that’s spread across the Doctor’s face.

 _( _Y_ es, _ he thinks. _We’ll be_ quite _all right, indeed_.)


End file.
